Tonight Bret Stephens, foreign affairs columnist for The Wall Street Journal, had some fascinating comments about Iran - its race toward nuclear capability, its connections with North Korea, and the bravery of Iranian people giving their lives for freedom tonight.
“What began as a dispute about inherently corrupt elections … has become a frontal assault on the regime itself,” Stephens told the crowd of approximately 700 young AIPAC leaders in Manhattan. “We should be vocally supporting the [Iranian] protestors.”
Regarding the security of Israel, the United States, and the free world Stephens said, “Assurance does not lie in diplomacy … or a military strike. The only way we will have security is if the nature of the regime changes.”
He continued, “The threat of a nuclear war only ended with the end of the Soviet Union, and that’s the only reasonable way [the threat of a nuclear armed Iran] is going to end.”
In this, Stephens sounded a note reminiscent of our former President George Bush. For all the maligning of his policies and ideas, much we are seeing unfold is no surprise to those who perceived–despite the many mistakes and obstacles and surprises along the road–the underlying wisdom and truth of his vision at its best: people will not be peaceful if they have no stake in their own lives or, in other words, are not free. In this idea, President Bush echoed the vision of the great Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky, who explained in his book “The Case for Democracy: the Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror,” that fear societies require brutal measures to suppress their populations. They also require external scapegoats. Hence no world in which tyrants rule with a brutal fist can be safe for people who are democratically governed, because tyranical societies must be belligerent by nature. When people are allowed to communicate freely, to share ideas, to enjoy the fruits of their own labors and invest in the futures of their children, to have a role in ther own governance, to have the power that comes from being free, they will not obediently march off to kill an imaginary enemy at the whim of a dictator. What is unfolding today in Iran may be the beginning of the crumbling of a fear society.
President Obama has thus far not come out in support of the protestors; this is a mistake. He of all people should understand the vital need to support those willing to die for their hope, hope that their children will be free.
We should do all we can to support those in Iran who are risking their lives for freedom. One way is by doing our little part to keep lines of communication open. Since the mullahs are clamping down on communications, one of the only means of sending messages has been via Twitter.
Yesterday evening a tech-savvy friend shared with me this moving message an Iranian protestor sent via Twitter: “I realized I do not fear death. I fear my daughter will not be free when I die.”
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Update
The White House has released a new statement yesterday (6/20) on the Iran situation:
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.
As I said in Cairo, suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. The Iranian people will ultimately judge the actions of their own government. If the Iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it must respect the dignity of its own people and govern through consent, not coercion.
Martin Luther King once said - “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” I believe that. The international community believes that. And right now, we are bearing witness to the Iranian peoples’ belief in that truth, and we will continue to bear witness.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Statement-from-the-President-on-Iran/
Senator and former presidential candidate John McCain supports the statement given.
“I appreciate the statement that he made yesterday that was far stronger, and I think we will need to continue to send that message,” said McCain, who was defeated by Obama in last year’s presidential election. “It’s not so much about Iran, it’s about being on the right side of history.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=a45xX4guCfyc
The situation will do doubt change by day.
Update 12:22 p.m. June 22
Obama statement on CBS News Monday Morning:
In an interview broadcast on CBS News Monday morning, Mr. Obama was asked about some criticisms that he hasn’t spoken out forcefully enough on the issue of the elections and the protests in the streets.
He told “The Early Show” co-anchor Harry Smith:
“The last thing that I want to do is to have the United States be a foil for — those forces inside Iran who would love nothing better than to make this an argument about the United States. That’s what they do. That’s what we’ve already seen. We shouldn’t be playing into that. There should be no distractions from the fact that the — Iranian people are seeking to — let their voices be heard.
“Now, what we can do is bear witness and say — to the world that the, you know, incredible demonstrations that we’ve seen is a testimony to — I think what Dr. King called the — the arc of the moral universe. It’s long but it bends towards justice.”
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/22/the-early-word-obama-on-iran/?hp
Obama’s approach is getting mixed reviews, but even some Republicans are coming to agree Obama’s conservative approach is best (from the same site):
Many Republicans criticized the president for being too soft, but some, including Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, supported the administration’s approach, saying Washington should focus on containing Iran’s nuclear program rather than the country’s politics.
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