Partner For Peace
Rapes, tortures dissenters to death.* BBC. Meanwhile, Khatami urges the regime to “resist the bullying of European countries” and ignore the West’s demands that they let dissenters go. NYT. Sadly, it doesn’t seem that the senior mullah felt it necessary to chide the United States.
At the risk of sounding preachy, this holds several important lessons for President Barack Obama and the American left. This is what a torturing, human-rights violating, imperialistic regime looks like, for starters. Also, the 2000 American election was a lawful result, arrived at in civil fashion. And the murderous mullah regime currently running Iran cannot be trusted any more than any of the other murderous and/or thuggishly dissent-stifling autocracies of the world, including North Korea, China and Russia. It’s 2009. Trusting violent, power-hungry autocracies has been tried. It doesn’t work. They need to be put on notice, hemmed in, confronted. Obama can use the international goodwill he enjoys to demonstrates that the fundamental policies of the Bush administration** were correct in this regard, much as he already has begun to in half-hearted fits and starts with regard to the war on terrorism.
* The murderous mullah regime denies the rape, sheepishly admits there may have been some roughing up, and fudges the death numbers.
** The Bush administration of course also undertook various feel-good and kowtowing measures with China, Russia and North Korea, though Bush never got credit for that from the people who think giving in to despots is the best course. However, Bush’s talks with the Iranian regime regarding Iraq were conducted from a position of strength, and this is a key lesson for the Obama administration. They were also specifically focused, and distinct from the nuclear talks, which proceeded for years under threat of military action that was supported by our European partners.
Topics: Iran
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:00 am on Friday, August 14, 2009
3 Responses to “Partner For Peace”
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August 14th, 2009 at 10:23 am
Also, the 2000 American election was a lawful result, arrived at in civil fashion.
Somebody better tell Hillary:
“Our democracy is still evolving,” Clinton said. “You know we had some problems in some of our presidential elections. As you may remember, in 2000 our presidential election came down to one state where the brother of one of the men running for president was governor of the state. So we have our problems too.” - Hillary Clinton speaking in Congo just this week
August 14th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
I’ve given up expecting anything but half-hearted fits and starts from this administration (except for the extraordinary domestic power-grab which is anything but halfhearted).
August 14th, 2009 at 10:03 pm
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