Is Obama Selling Out the Iranian Revolution?
The Washington Post op-ed page has become the main forum of neocon opposition to President Obama's approach toward Iran. Today it features two pieces. The first is by Paul Wolfowitz, the other by Charles Krauthammer.
Wolfowitz's is measured and stimulating. But that does not mean that it is necessarily correct. Wolfowitz draws on his own experiences in the Reagan and Bush 41 administrations to argue that Obama is being too cautious. He notes that Secretary of State George Shultz was dismayed by Ronald Reagan's initial reluctance to call out Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos for election fraud in 1986. Reagan, Wolfowitz says, shifted gears after Shultz persuaded him he had to back away from the longtime American ally. But that is the key difference in the Philippine situation--Marcos was a venal authoritarian dictator that America had been helping to prop up. Major domo Ali Khamenei is not an ally of America's but the reverse.
Wolfowitz goes on to point to the attempted coup against Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991. George H.W. Bush was notably circumspect about backing Gorbachev.
According to Wolfowitz, "it was Yeltsin--with a powerful personal letter--who persuaded Bush to abandon equivocation and oppose the coup." The difference with Iran, of course, is that Gorbachev was the reformer in power whom retrograde forces were trying to oust. Once again, the reverse of the situation in Tehran.
Wolfowitz acknowledges that "no two situations are identical," which is putting it mildly! But he argues that Obama should now reverse course as well. According to him, "Coming from America, silence is itself a comment--a comment in support of those holding power and against those protesting the status quo." He adds that Obama does not need to pick sides in the election but "could send a powerful message simply by placing his enormous personal prestige behind the peaceful conduct of the demonstrators and their demand for reform--exactly the kind of peaceful, democratic change that he praised in his speech in Cairo."
Clearly Obama was caught flatfooted by the protests. But he does seem to be carefully ratcheting up his criticisms of the mullahs. In a Tuesday interview with CNBC, Obama said that when, "you've got 100,000 people who are out on the streets peacefully protesting, and they're having to be scattered through violence and gunshots, what that tells me is the Iranian people are not convinced of the legitimacy of the election. And my hope is that the regime respond not with violence, but with a recognition that the universal principles of peaceful expression and democracy are ones that should be affirmed." Even that mild reproof was enough to send the Iranian leadership into conniptions, as the Washington Post's Thomas Erdbrink reports today.
If Wolfowitz seeks to exhort Obama to take a more forceful stand, Krauthammer lashes into him as a pathetic wimp who is missing the chance to alter history, or least put himself on the right side of it. He sees a new domino effect in the region. Peace and freedom can bloom overnight: "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."
This is, of course, a pleasant fantasy. It is essentially no different from the one that the neocons peddled on the eve of the Iraq War. Just as the war was supposed to topple dicatorships in the Middle East, so Obama's support for the demonstrators would, somehow, usher in the end of the age of tyranny. But even a moderate Iran would not be an unflinching ally of Washington's. Instead, it would follow its national interests. Ever since the Shah's days, Iran has had a nuclear program.
Ultimately, Krauthammer's belligerence rests on the bogus assumption that America can by itself steer events in Iran as it wishes. If only Obama will demonstrate more support for the demonstrators, then all will be well. Krauthammer ascribes an omnipotence to America that it does not possess.
The truth is that the impressive thing has been how well Obama has handled the crisis. Again and again, Obama was pounded for his lack of experience during the 2008 election campaign. But imagine if John McCain were president. The mullahs would not be in the predicament they are. Instead, they could point to the demonstrators as American stooges. The uprising would have been quashed before it ever began. Fortunately, Obama's basic approach has been to follow the foreign policy equivalent of the Hippocratic Oath: "First, do no harm." Imagine the obloquy that would greet Obama if he were to champion the demonstrators and help to create a bloodbath, as Radio Free Europe did during the 1956 Hungarian revolution, when it encouraged Hungarians to revolt by assuring them that they had backing of the West, which they didn't. So far, Obama has shrewdly hewed to a middle course that allows him some flexibility in dealing with Iran.
For no one truly knows where Iran is headed. It could lurch into civil war, a violent crackdown, or the regime could crumble. But with Khamenei denouncing the demonstrators in his Friday address, Iran is turbulent enough without Obama piling on. Obama doesn't deserve criticism, but plaudits for his statesmanship.
The more pertinent question might be is the Washington Post selling out it's identity to cater to a neocon agenda? And the answer would objectively be yes, to put it in neocon terms.
June 19, 2009 9:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
Good post; I agree completely. They fire Froomkin, while promoting thoroughly discredited neo-cons. Another newspaper goes down the drain.
June 19, 2009 1:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Both Paul Wolfowitz and Charles Krauthammer are neocon hawks.
That, in itself, should sufficiently explain their views.
The question should be: "Since their views are so clearly on record, what makes their views newsworthy for the Washington Post at this time in history."
Even the protesters in Iran are asking the USA to avoid getting involved since a US involvement would be interpreted as being foreign influence and would delegitimitize the protest movement as being foreign controlled rather than being home grown Iranian.
June 19, 2009 9:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
GOP to Obama: Meddle in Iran, Not Here!
http://satiricalpolitical.com/?p=7499
June 19, 2009 9:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
Not just the two zealots. Ignatius seems to have gotten rolled into interventionism by his colleagues as well, and has switched his position from the first column he wrote on the topic.
June 19, 2009 10:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Every time I become concerned about the decline of newspapers, I think of the WaPo. And then I don't feel so bad.
June 19, 2009 10:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
The Washington Post is about as politically impartial as the Third Reich's Signal Magazine was in WW2. At least Signal had lots of color pictures.
June 19, 2009 11:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
Throughout the history of the middle east, whenever the US has had a choice between getting more involved and staying less involved, the more involved choice has hurt our interests. Remember the Shah? We're still feeling the blowback from that. The people of Iran appear to be handling their affairs fine by themselves. Our "help" could only hurt.
June 19, 2009 10:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Chait has a pretty good take on both these opeds. Here's what I think is the money quote:
June 19, 2009 10:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
For once I agree with an article on this site in toto. No one truly understands what is happening in Iran; not the mullahs, not the various factions, and certainly not the Americans.
Given that, and the history of animosity and suspicion between both countries, caution is the right course. Any intervention could prove enormously counterproductive to our interests.
I do have one criticism however. The author inserts partisan cant about retrograde, dictators, etc. The majority of Iranians may prefer a type of government we can't stand - or, more precisely, a type of government which significant parts of our populace can't stand. While it is tempting to intervene on the side of the seeming opponents it it is likely to be very unwise to do so at this time.
June 19, 2009 10:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
For once I agree with ordinary in toto.
June 19, 2009 2:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Egging Obama on say more endorsing the protesters seems to be win-win for Republicans such as Newt and McCain. If the protestors succeed, the Republicans can say they were on the right side of history and Obama's was going to sell him out, timidity blinded him to their eventual success, etc. etc.
If the protesters don't succeed in forcing change to Iran, it's because Obama didn't come out strongly enough in support of them.
Watch for it! Though I think the alternate storyline, that refusing to appear to meddle was better support for the protesters then endorsing them, is strong enough to overcome Republican lines. Still, we will be hearing the above. I'll put money on it.
June 19, 2009 10:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
We all know that when a hundred thousand citizens take to the streets the government crumbles like a stale ginger snap. Who could forget the success of the citizen protests against the invasion of Iraq.
June 19, 2009 10:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
...sure, just like the protests after the first bush election.
Maybe Obama isn't commenting because it feels wayyy too familiar.
June 19, 2009 4:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
by the way, concerning the title of this post, yes/no questions that restate opponents' arguments are terrible framing.
June 19, 2009 10:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Bomb everybody and have a nice day! We're NUMBER ONE! WE'RE NUMBER ONE!
June 19, 2009 10:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
In what universe was Obama "clearly" caught flat-footed? Not the one I live in...
June 19, 2009 11:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
The last thing the world needed was another lesson in the bottomless stupidity of the neocon mindset. They're like stupid generals who think the only correct way to take a fixed and fortified position is a frontal assault by massed infantry. (Except, of course, for the fact that even stupid generals wear their country's uniform and may have been in shouting distance of physical danger at some point in their career.)
It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that, however well educated they may be, they're simply boneheads. In their world, the application of even very minimal subtlety in matters of foreign policy or national security is appeasement and deftness is moral treason. There are only two appropriate responses to any event in a foreign country: threatening to kill people and destroy things or actually killing people and destroying things. Any other response makes you another Neville Chamberlien, or, if they're really off their meds, another Vidkun Quisling.
Any fool ought to be aware of the fact that blaming the West is the Iranian regime's all purpose response for every difficulty. If there is one thing they want, it's for us to come out strongly in favor of those they oppose. Obama's failure to do so is clearly driving them crazy. At Friday "prayers" last night, Khamanei had to content himself with blaming the Brits because he didn't have any of the counterproductive American bombast he would have had from Bush or Cheney to point to this time.
Nothing would delegitimize the opposition faster than for Obama to do what the neocons are screaming for him to do. Any fool should see it, but not these fools. Which is, of course, why they dominate the editorial pages of the Washington Post.
June 19, 2009 12:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think there is a large difference to a critique of a nation's elections when you have a large occupying military force in a 'regime-changed' neighboring country.
It lends a certain weight.
June 19, 2009 12:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
What is more concerning to me than the cowboy diplomacy of these hard-driving neocons is the imbalance on WaPo's editorial page. Fred Hiatt & Co. need to break out of whatever bubble they've been operating in for too long now and join the world where ideology and the political wars of the Clinton-Bush eras are now history. WaPo'a editorial page is a national embarrassment, and a huge wasted opportunity for the embattled newspaper community to show constructive relevance to a shrinking readership. ON Iran, if Peggy Noonan of all people can understand the foolishness of American sermonizing on democracy in a country where we've gotten it wrong so many times over half a century, then surely the boneheaded editors and columnists at WaPo can do so too.
June 19, 2009 1:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
These idiots have no clue.
One of the biggest problems facing Iranian and U.S. relations, is that under the Bush administration we looked at Iran as monolithic. Everyone is radical and backward. we are seeing that couldn't be further from the truth.
Dr. Brzezinski, on Morning Joe, does a great job debunking this false representation of Iranian society.
A must watch clip.
http://progressnotcongress.org/?p=1853
June 19, 2009 2:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
You don't even have to go back that far for an example: there was the 1991 uprising in Iraq in the aftermath of the Gulf War. George H. W. Bush goes on Voice of America and says:
But we weren't prepared to put any real military muscle behind that, and so what happens? The Shiites and the Kurds and the disaffected members of the Iraqi military rise up and are crushed by Saddam's tanks and helicopters. Tens of thousands are killed, millions are displaced, and what do we do? We set up no-fly zones and put a dozen of so of Saddam's aides on trial for war crimes. But Saddam remains in power.
There's no point in belligerent talk unless you're prepared to act accordingly, and I don't think anybody wants to start a war with Iran. Well, not anyone who is not already batshit crazy, that is.
June 19, 2009 3:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Washington Post is not even fit to use as toilet paper. I wouldn’t want to insult my asshole.
June 19, 2009 3:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Warren Buffet, the biggest supporter of the Democratic Socialist Party, owns the Washington Post.
You liberals can't even agree with your own views.
June 20, 2009 11:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
I do have one criticism however. The author inserts partisan cant about retrograde, dictators, etc. The majority of Iranians may prefer a type of government we can't stand - or, more precisely, a type of government which significant parts of our populace can't stand. While it is tempting to intervene on the side of the seeming opponents it it is likely to be very unwise to do so at this time.
The money quote in the comments. May I recommend a comment to a post?
June 19, 2009 6:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Seems the most important point to realize is that people like wolfowitz and krauthammer are even taken serious.
So the wash. post as the ny times ,removes another vail in demonstration of their right-wing philosophy.
Who is shocked about that if an IQ above 40 still matters?
This idea that all of a sudden Iran, receives this much attention when under bush or a preseident mccain these same "democratic freedom" fighters would have been bombed to extinction for their own good, suddenly represent a turning point toward anything, is offensive.
Finding charges that stick is the only game in town.
Doing the bidding of favored nation 'states", the motive here.
Excuse me for not taking the intentions serious.
June 20, 2009 10:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why should anyone be surprised that Obama supports the outcome of the Iranian elections? He's trying to steal *our* freedom, and you think he'll support liberty in a country half way around the globe?
Bush may not have been the best president ever, but he did have convictions. This current president is wishy washy on everything, because he's already running for re-election.
June 20, 2009 11:08 AM | Reply | Permalink