Iranian events caught U.S. totally unprepared as Obama rigidly pursued ‘charm diplomacy’

WASHINGTON, D.C. — When a nation of 67 million starts waving its fist in protest, its rulers start living on borrowed time. Iran is such a nation right now and its junta of theocrats and RoboCops is on notice.

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How long the notice period will be no one can tell. It could be a decade or it could be four weeks, as recent precedents show. It took nine years for Poland to rid itself of communist and Soviet overlordship once the Solidarity movement formed in the Gdansk Shipyard in August 1980. In September 1989, a noncommunist prime minister took office in Warsaw. The example spread like wildfire and only five months later, and 70 kilometres west of the Polish border, the Berlin Wall crumbled into history’s ash heap. The rest of the Soviet Empire followed in record time and the Cold War was no more. Read up on any revolution you like, and the pattern is the same. When oppressed people form a critical mass, it is curtains for the rulers. Iran, I’m convinced, is on this path to change, for better or for worse. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may manage to hang in. His Revolutionary Guards and the old Savak secret police under its new shingle may beat the people into the ground. But the end of the current regime is as predictable as the sunrise. Last Friday, some 40-million Iranians voted in a presidential election. They marked paper ballots. Hundreds of thousands rallied in support of Mirhossein Mousavi, Mr. Ahmadinejad’s principal opponent. Yet Mr. Ahmadinejad officially announced a smashing victory a couple of hours after voting had ended. The fraud was obvious to any Iranian — and to sentient people everywhere. The shame is that part of the Western media has reported the election results as factual, though the ballots could not possibly have been counted. Form must be observed. But there is form and there is form. For example, any half-decent diplomat can issue a statement — even on Iran’s election — that conforms to the rules without giving de facto backing to the fraudsters. President Barack Obama has not remained neutral. The sparse comments he has made tilt to Mr. Ahmadinejad. Note, he remained silent for two days and when he spoke up Tuesday, he confined his lawyerly comments to pain, brutality and "violence" against "peaceful protesters." But he voiced no disappointment at the obvious fraud. Mr. Obama’s stance does not surprise. He promised a conciliatory approach to foreign friend and foe alike. He made plain that his diplomacy would stay clear of the "freedom agenda" preached by George W. Bush. His, Mr. Obama said, would be the realism of Mr. Bush’s father, President George Herbert Walker Bush. True to his word, Mr. Obama "reset the button" on relations with Russia and promised to talk to any foreign leader, however hostile, "without preconditions." These are interesting, even admirable sentiments. Countries make peace with their enemies; they already have it with friends. Sentiments, however, are no substitute for well-thought-out backup policies and plans to implement them without delay. Without such readiness, effective diplomacy is impossible. Mr. Obama hopes to charm Iran’s rulers into abandoning their drive to nuclear power status — including with hot-dog diplomacy, as I wrote approvingly in my previous column. But the election fraud in Iran promises to go badly for Mr. Obama. Mr. Ahmadinejad’s insult to the intelligence of Iranians and the rest of the world is sufficient proof of such an assessment — a "drop dead" message to the new American president. Mr. Obama’s policy is to charm would-be nuclear powers to drop their ambitions in return for America’s friendly smile and one-on-one talks about normalized or improved relations. That’s nice. But neither Mr. Ahmadinejad nor the ayatollahs nor the army holding the real power in Teheran shows any sign of stopping their quest for nuclear weapons. In short, Mr. Obama risks ending up looking the fool. A conciliatory policy is welcome in almost all international situations. But to have any chance of success, it must be backed up by a realistic alternative course of action ready for deployment. Mr. Obama and his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, have not shown the edge of a hint of having prepared any credible alternatives in their let’s-be-friends gambit in Iran and Russia — and arguably in North Korea. Pretending to see no evil, speak no evil and hear no evil can be useful. But it must never blind an American president to the meaning of millions of people fed up with lies.