Hope and Change -- but Not for Iran
Millions of Iranians take to the streets to defy a theocratic dictatorship that, among its other finer qualities, is a self-declared enemy of America and the tolerance and liberties it represents. The demonstrators are fighting on their own, but they await just a word that America is on their side.
Oh, is that what they're awaiting? 'Cause it looks to me like they just went ahead and started without us.
. . . after treating this popular revolution as an inconvenience to the real business of Obama-Khamenei negotiations, the president speaks favorably of "some initial reaction from the Supreme Leader that indicates he understands the Iranian people have deep concerns about the election."
"treating this popular revolution as an inconvenience?" Really? Is this the part where we make up ridiculous actions and attribute them to people we don't like? I love this part! Let me try. Um, After treating stray puppies as convenient concubines, Charles Krauthammer then spoke favorably of "some initial reaction from my favorite crack dealer." Gosh, that is fun! Now, some may quibble over the fine points of whether Charles Krauthammer actually had sex with puppies, but I say he did in the same sense that Barack Obama treated the Iranian uprising as "an inconvenience to the real business of Obama-Khamenei negotiations."
In Charles Krauthammer's mind, this is what a meeting between Barack Obama and Ayatollah Khamenei would look like.
Where to begin? "Supreme Leader"? Note the abject solicitousness with which the American president confers this honorific on a clerical dictator who, even as his minions attack demonstrators, offers to examine some returns in some electoral districts -- a farcical fix that will do nothing to alter the fraudulence of the election.
Right, referring to someone by his correct title is "abject solicitousness." When Obama does meet the ayatollah, the correct greeting would be to pat him on the head like Benny Hill, call him Shemp and give him a wedgie. Let him know that the USA is the goddamn alpha male!
This started out about election fraud. But like all revolutions, it has far outgrown its origins. What's at stake now is the very legitimacy of this regime -- and the future of the entire Middle East.
Oh my God! Are you seriously still on this "re-making the Middle East" kick? How's it been working out so far?
This revolution will end either as a Tiananmen or as a true revolution that brings down the Islamic Republic.
The latter is improbable but, for the first time in 30 years, not impossible. Imagine the repercussions. It would mark a decisive blow to Islamist radicalism, of which Iran today is not just standard-bearer and model, but financier and arms supplier. It would do to Islamism what the collapse of the Soviet Union did to communism -- leave it forever spent and discredited.
Righ, which is why Communism was abandoned by China, Cuba, Vietnam, North Korea, hey, wait a minute!
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.
Holy Fuck! The domino theory? Are you fucking serious? How would that even work? Iranians overthrow their theocracy, and the Islamist dictators in other Arab states don't clamp down hard on the slightest hint of dissidence? Saudis rise up to oust the royal house of Saud, and King Abdullah just says, "well fuck it, it worked in Iran, what chance do we have? Throw down your weapons, fellas, it's time to go into exile! Freedom is on the march and there's no fighting progress!" You'd have to be a complete idiot to buy some rosy scenario about waves of democracy spreading throughout the Middle East. You'd have to be the kind of moron who bought the "we'll be greeted as liberators" scenario.
Even from the narrow perspective of the nuclear issue, the administration's geopolitical calculus is absurd. There is zero chance that any such talks will denuclearize Iran. On Monday, President Ahmadinejad declared yet again that the nuclear "file is shut, forever."
Of course, Achmadinejad has about as much real power as Queen Elizabeth, but why let that stand in the way of a good rant?
The only hope for a resolution of the nuclear question is regime change
Regime change? Regime change? How many Goddamn regimes are we supposed to change? And with what? Where are all these extra soldiers going to come from? Our military is already stretched to the breaking point, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are bankrupting us, and you want to get involved in another Middle Eastern Country? This is not a game of fucking Risk! This is real life, and the grownups are in charge now. So how about you shut your fat yap and let the grownups who live in the real world handle things, mmkay?
