I know it’s redundant to tell people to read Charles Krauthammer – really, you are doing Friday wrong if you don’t read his column every week – but he boils down the essential stakes in Iran neatly, and reminds us that this isn’t just about Ahmadenijad vs Mousavi. Samples:
[T]his incipient revolution is no longer about the election. Obama totally misses the point. The election allowed the political space and provided the spark for the eruption of anti-regime fervor that has been simmering for years and awaiting its moment. But people aren’t dying in the street because they want a recount of hanging chads in suburban Isfahan. They want to bring down the tyrannical, misogynist, corrupt theocracy that has imposed itself with the very baton-wielding goons that today attack the demonstrators.
As Bill Clinton might put it: it’s the mullahs, stupid. Krauthammer, as always, looks at this from the broader perspective of regional/global strategic dynamics. The stakes, if the regime falls:
Imagine the repercussions. It would mark a decisive blow to Islamist radicalism, of which Iran today is not just standard-bearer and model, but financier and arms supplier. It would do to Islamism what the collapse of the Soviet Union did to communism — leave it forever spent and discredited.
In the region, it would launch a second Arab spring. The first in 2005 — the expulsion of Syria from Lebanon, the first elections in Iraq and early liberalization in the Gulf states and Egypt — was aborted by a fierce counterattack from the forces of repression and reaction, led and funded by Iran.
Now, with Hezbollah having lost elections in Lebanon and with Iraq establishing the institutions of a young democracy, the fall of the Islamist dictatorship in Iran would have an electric and contagious effect. The exception — Iraq and Lebanon — becomes the rule. Democracy becomes the wave. Syria becomes isolated; Hezbollah and Hamas, patronless. The entire trajectory of the region is reversed.
All hangs in the balance.
Krauthammer does oversimplify a bit; there are forces in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan that are also crucial to the counterrevolution against democratizing and liberalizing the region. But in neither of those states do the reactionaries have full control of the government the way they do in Iran (internal Saudi and Pakistani politics being deeply Byzantine), and changing the Iranian regime would put those forces in a much weaker position within their own states in the same way it would isolate Syria.
As Krauthammer notes, and as I discussed yesterday, Obama is on the wrong side of this – not in the Ahmadenijad vs Mousavi dispute, on which he’s properly neutral, but on the broader people vs mullahs battle, in which his tepid responses and olive branches to the mullahs are effectively placing him on the side of the billy clubs. The House just voted 405-1 to “condemn” repression in Iran and stand with the dissidents; only Ron Paul, who votes against these things as a matter of course, sided with the mullahs and the White House.
Moe Lane
Steve Maley
Dan McLaughlin
Neil Stevens
Daniel Horowitz
They want to bring down the tyrannical, misogynist, corrupt theocracy that has imposed itself with the very baton-wielding goons that today attack the demonstrators.
izoneguy (Diary) Friday, June 19th at 1:12PM EST (link)And this is what Obama is afraid of. He relates with the mullahs.
Because eventually it will come down to this:
Americans want to bring down the tyrannical, misogynist, corrupt Obama administration that has imposed itself with the very baton-wielding ACORN goons that today attack the Tea Party demonstrators.
The point cannot be made often enough: Modern liberalism, as embodied in the Obama presidency, is the defender of the status quo. And the status quo is a road to economic ruin. Political forces cannot redistribute the wealth that the economic system does not produce.
My thinking exactly, izoneguy. The last thing
janis (Diary) Friday, June 19th at 2:33PM EST (link)Obama wants to see in this world is a repressed citizenry throwing off the chains of their repressors while he is busy at the White House forge night and day stringing our links together. It must be of wonderful comfort to him that Chavez has an iron grip on Venezuela at this point.
I wonder is there is a private list on the ‘net for tyrants and dictators so they can communicate in secret?
izoneguy- That was exactly my thought
Scope (Diary) Friday, June 19th at 2:47PM EST (link)Obama is not siding with the Iranian people, and against the Mullahs, because come 2012 the US will probably be facing the same situation, when Obama and the Libs steal the election with the help of the battons called ACORN and theBlack Panthers, who recently had their voter intimidation case dismissed.
In a way I’m not surprised that the only vote for the mullahs was Paul, as he has always been Representative No, just for the sake of voting No. Isn’t he the one who rallied crowds of supporters against too much Government, yet he votes in favor of what is a well known tyrannical Iran Government system. I guess he doesn’t believe that we should be “poking our noses in what other countries governments do.” What an ass.
Hillary Clinton was right ((ducks in case of lightning))
6eorge Jetson (Diary) Friday, June 19th at 5:52PM EST (link)I doubt Obama means harm but
Common_Cents (Diary) Friday, June 19th at 5:58PM EST (link)in his arrogance, years of brainwashing, and stupidity he believes he can single handedly run the USA himself much better than millions of us making individual choices.
Obama=Golfer in Chief, Leading from,
behind, the Back Nine.Leaders don’t create movements. Movements create leaders. Get involved. Your future depends on it.
Govt “invests” YOUR tax money for POLITICAL return rather than economic return.
I Don't (Doubt It) (nt)
IJB Friday, June 19th at 6:22PM EST (link)Townhall not the Washington (com)Post
jcincy Friday, June 19th at 1:41PM EST (link)Why read Charles Krauthammer at the Washington Compost website, when you can read his work on the Townhall.com website.
http://townhall.com/Columnists/CharlesKrauthammer/2009/06/19/hope_and_change_-_but_not_for_iran
Support conservative websites with your hits!
“Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation, to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.” — John Jay
Sadly, the reason Ron Paul voted no...
MacAoidh (Diary) Friday, June 19th at 2:47PM EST (link)…may well have to do with the allegations he’s in the pay of the mullahs.
In any event, this is an administration which is determined to avoid any foreign-policy entanglements so as to be free to impose a neo-Fascist regime on the American people. From a geopolitical standpoint that is on one hand deeply unfortunate, as it will represent a terrible loss of opportunities (the current situation in Iran is a redux of Poland in 1981; a Ronald Reagan would ensure a free Iran by the end of his term) and on another it is impossible. Obama may choose to let the Iranian mullahs and Kim Jong Il alone, but they will surely decline to reciprocate.
Check out MacAoidh’s commentary on Louisiana and national politics at TheHayride.com
If the Mullahs fall, it radically changes the region and the world
icbm (Diary) Friday, June 19th at 3:21PM EST (link)We should only be so lucky
you know if the Iranians do pull a revolution...
kyle8 (Diary) Friday, June 19th at 4:02PM EST (link)and then a lot of them say they were inspired by their fellow Shiites voting in Iraq. I wonder how the hate Bush left wingers will spin it?
“Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty”
Kyle
Ummm....my money's on: "Bush lied, people died" (do they know anything else?) nt
eburke (Diary) Friday, June 19th at 5:11PM EST (link)“All that need be done for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”
Unified Patriots
Just you wait, if Iran's theocracy falls and is replaced by a democracy, Obama will try to take credit for it
Finrod (Diary) Friday, June 19th at 4:34PM EST (link)Whereas we know that the people in Iran wouldn’t even be dreaming of revolution if Saddam Hussein was still in control of Iraq next door. Bush’s war in Iraq is what’s made the current situation in Iran possible, just like Ronald Reagan pressing the USSR caused the Berlin Wall to fall, even though it happened after he left office.
Let’s get down to brass tacks here. How much for the ape?
It Won't Work - It's Not Credible
IJB Friday, June 19th at 5:31PM EST (link)Slobama may *try* to take credit, but no one outside of the Kos Kidz will take that seriously. That one won’t even pass the ‘smell test’ with the mushy-headed Indies….
“DON’T FORGET WHAT HAPPENED TO SADDAM!!!.)
Paul_In_Houston Friday, June 19th at 4:52PM EST (link)On another blog, a commenter, on a post about “Freedom in Iran”, observed…
I have to say right now that we should be very cautious about depicting the Iranians as liberal-thinking Westerners who want total freedom. This is a mistake that we make all the time.
Perhaps, but…
How many times have we partnered with, or dealt “pragmatically” with, some oppressive regime, using the justification that their people weren’t “READY” for freedom (as if they were sub-human or something). I really think this is an EXCUSE for preserving status quo.
Can it be possible, just possible, that after recent events, there could be some Iranians wondering, “If the Iraqis and Afghans can pull off genuine elections, WHY THE HELL CAN’T WE?!!!”
(Just saw, over at Gateway Pundit, an Iranian protester holding a sign that translated into, “DON’T FORGET WHAT HAPPENED TO SADDAM!!!.)
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Obama Erases Pro-Democracy Money for Iran
izoneguy (Diary) Friday, June 19th at 6:31PM EST (link)Obama Erases Pro-Democracy Money for Iran – Yet he wants to send $900 Million to Gaza????
http://www.newsmax.com/timmerman/Obama_Democracy_Iran/2009/06/19/227155.html
The point cannot be made often enough: Modern liberalism, as embodied in the Obama presidency, is the defender of the status quo. And the status quo is a road to economic ruin. Political forces cannot redistribute the wealth that the economic system does not produce.