Iran On Fire
At least eight dead in running street battles reportedly involving hundreds of thousands. “Analysts hailed what could be the start of a bloody endgame … ” Times of London. Commentary roundup looks at the mullahs’ own worst enemy … Ayatollah Khamenei. Plus, re the guy who has turned out to be the mullahs’ best friend, the pros and cons of saying and doing nothing vs. saying and doing something.
Meir Javedanfar at PBS’ Frontline on Khamenei’s missteps and the “start of an Iranian intifada.”
Ali Ansari at The Independent … more on mullahs behaving badly. Khamenei has made this about himself.
Supreme irony for the supreme leader … an Ashura insurrection. Rouzbei and Trita Parsi via Daily Beast.
Selig Harrison, NYT op-ed: Tehran’s biggest nightmare, an opposition-ethnic minority nexus. As he notes, however, that doesn’t look likely.
Stephen Walt at Foreign Policy has the case for doing nothing. It’s largely nonsense. If the United States official position needs to be “measured and temperate,” Obama’s tacit support for the mullahs, as he waited around for them to finish beating down the opposition so he could negotiate with them, was anything but. As for admonishments against “sabre-rattling,” no danger of that out of O. As for the notion that the United States should drop its expectations that a new regime drop Iranian nuclear ambitions, is he nuts?
Nile Gardiner, UK Telegraph, on what silence and supplication gets you: “Barack Obama’s high-risk engagement strategy has simply encouraged more repression from the Mullahs, as well as ever greater levels of defiance over Iran’s nuclear weapons programme.” He notes the embarrassment of being morally upstaged by the French and Germans.
It’s a delicate balance. As president of the United States, you don’t want to make promises you’re not going to keep, and take public actions that undermine or compromise the opposition. Even the hawks that everyone is using as strawmen* know we’re not going to be invading Iran, and this would be a particularly bad time to launch air strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. That said, signalling that you’re ready to deal with the thugs once their crackdown is done, so that they can continue thumbing their nose at you, is ridiculous. The argument might be made that if you can’t help, then get out of the way. Unfortunately for Barack Obama, as attractive as utter inaction might seem, as president of the United States that’s not really an option either. What he needs to develop is what everyone thought he had when they voted for him. Moral courage. Also, some sophistication in foreign affairs. As well as street smarts … which no one ever accused him of having. So he needs to figure out the right balance of covert action, direct and indirect pressure, and public condemnation. It’s his job. And it’s 3 a.m. wakeup time again.
Speaking of awakenings, here’s a non-violence advocate’s aha moment. Josh Shahryar at the Daily Nite Owl: Non-violence doesn’t work against a violent thugocracy. That’s interesting, I think Obama just said the same thing a couple of weeks ago.
Stephen F. Hayes at the Weekly Standard on the failure of engagement:
The problem, it turns out, was not George W. Bush. It wasn’t a lack of American goodwill or our failure to acknowledge mistakes or our underdeveloped national listening skills. The problem is the Iranian regime.
…
In 2009, we tried to engage the Iranian regime. In 2010, let’s try to change it.
Art and vid via Gateway, who also notes that Merkel’s doing the talking while another top world leader’s on vacay.
HotAir goes down Memory Lane with Barack Obama.
Memorandum roundup here. RealClearWorld here.
* On the subject of hawks, domestic commentators are irrelevant under an administration bent this far backward, and the cries of alarm over hawkish pronouncements are beyond ridiculous. In any case, you’ll notice during eight years in power, the collection of neo-cons and assorted other hawks held off either invading Iran, selectively targeting Iranian targets or encouraging proxies to do so, while reportedly ramping up covert activities. The results, no worse than Obama’s supplication. In fact, when you consider the impact of shock and awe in 2003-04 … Gaddhafi’s capitulation, the Iranian mullah’s nervous nuclear pause, and the spread of democracy movements in the Middle East … vs. recent increased repression and open murder in the streets, considerably better. The Bush admin hawks’ failure was the failure to fully and effectively capitalize on the removal of Saddam Hussein. The mishandling of Iraq emboldened and gave the Iranian mullahs reason for hope, which has thus far been fulfilled by the American electorate. But although President Obama has made a series of embarrassing and shameful missteps in foreign policy, he is not an entirely lost cause. His Afghanistan strategy was a halting half-step in the development of some moral courage and common sense.
Topics: Iran
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:27 am Comments (4) on Monday, December 28, 2009
4 Responses to “Iran On Fire”
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December 28th, 2009 at 11:52 am
[...] Crittenden roundup [...]
December 28th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
Missteps. You say missteps, I say planned or at least he didn’t care enough to worry about them. Why should he worry, his plans are coming together fine. The U.S. will be bankrupt in a year and INTERPOL will have free reign within the U.S. among other little surprises he has in store for us and the world.
Obama is a mouthpiece and a pretty face (so his worshipers say) backed by who knows who with billions of dollars from all over the world and of course stolen from Americans. He is at the very least an apoligist for not only Islam but every dictator in the world today. He is a not only a socialist but a closet commie and is working their plan.
Missteps indeed.
Oh…and something else besides the attacks on the US. this year (11 at last count I believe) is the fact that for the very first time in Israel’s history all of Israel’s First Heads of Mission are recalled this week to “discuss broad diplomatic and strategic issues at a conference”…
Wonder what the top discussion point will be?
Obama will not be advised, you can count on that.
Papa Ray
December 29th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
[...] Jules has another roundup of links. [...]
December 30th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
[...] Not An Option Jules Crittenden explains. “Even the hawks that everyone is using as strawmen know we’re not going to be invading [...]