The events in Iran have garnered a lot of attention, albeit in a new sort of way. The first weekend after the elections (two weekends ago) lots of waves were being made in the Twitterverse and various sites (HuffPo etc.) about the massive protests happening in Tehran and elsewhere. However, very little coverage was being aired on the 24 hr cable news networks. There are a lot of explanations for this, some justifiable, some not, but I'm not going to get into that now. Twitter and Facebook and to a lesser extent other social networking sites made this news available, while also contributing to the dissent - creating a fantastic nexus of information for news' sake and information for organizing and dissent's sake. It was interesting to watch it unfold through non-traditional forms of media.
A substory in all of this is Obama's reaction to the events in Iran. Some have called it timid, others have called it measured and appropriate. I happen to find myself somewhere in between.
In the press conference today, Major Garrett of Fox News asked the President what took him so long to declare the violence in Iran "unacceptable", and the President's response was that he had been consistent all along. I'm not sure that's accurate. In his strongest words on Iran to date the President said the following in a statement released this past Saturday June 20, 2009:
The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching. We mourn each and every innocent life that is lost. We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people. The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights.
The President seemed to suggest that he had used the word "deplorable" in respect to the violence against peaceful protesters in Iran before, though I didn't see that word anywhere in the statement.
There is a delicate balance that Obama has tried to strike, one of not giving the appearance of too much intrusion into Iranian sovereignty, but still a vocalization of democratic ideals. Some would call it triangulation, and I really don't think the President wants his legacy on supporting the dissenters in Iran to be one of triangulation. In the short term he needs to be a more vocal supporter of the Iranians who are challenging the "iron-fist" (his words) of the mullahs.
The President is right to point out that the state media in Tehran has concocted all sorts of nonsense about how Obama is secretly urging on the protesters, and that the CIA has a hand in all of this. But this is not a reason to lay low, as the credibility of these outlets is far from pristine. Obama is someone who has immense capital when it comes to a western leader resonating with Muslims - Arab, Persian or otherwise - and he should invoke it when he can, now being a prime example.
Behind all of this mayhem though lies a serious diplomatic conundrum that has no easy answers. Christopher Hitchens call this problem "a nuclearized, fascistic theocracy in Iran," and rightfully declares that we simply cannot coexist with one. I agree wholeheartedly, and from what the President says he does as well. However, the question remains how to best use our power to make this end an impossibility for the current Iranian regime.
Some like Max Boot, who I had blogged about a week or so ago, have written that the re-election of Ahmadinejad is at least partially acceptable, because the ability to diplomatically (i.e. without war) quash the Iranian's nuclear ambitions with the mullahcracy intact are nil. The logic continues that with Ahmadinejad in power the West will be more likely to engage Iran militarily, and bring the mighty (or not so) Persian pests to their knees. I think Boot is probably right, though this administration will never come close to thinking so pessimistically (some might say this is in fact realistic thinking).
Others, like Hitchens, think that a more strongly-voiced support for the Iranian dissenters from the President might succeed in urging them on, bringing the state to a halt, and quite possibly, with enough encouragement, the mullahcracy to its knees.
The problem in analyzing these various tactics is one of an information gap. There is evidence of a fracturing within the top tiers of the Iranian government, but to what extent we don't know. Will further protests deepen these divisions? Or will they only drive the mullahs toward more unity in order to bring a halt to the domestic turmoil? The impenetrability of the mullahcracy has made any good news or foreign/policy analysis hard to honestly execute. And in many cases, amongst experts on Iran, one person's guess is as good as another's.
The sad part is that with each passing day, new centrifuges are built, their nuclear program expanded and the Iranians are increasingly closer to the weaponization of uranium.
Obama's use of the words "unacceptable" and "deplorable" to describe the Iranian state's use of violence on its own people is a step in the right direction, albeit a baby step. The United States has a proud tradition of supporting movements toward democracy and liberty throughout history (admittedly not always, I know) and Obama should continue this tradition.
The clock continues to tick down towards a nuclear-armed Iran. The world simply cannot accept that result.
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