What really is going on in Iran? We’ve all seen the Iranian people’s reaction to the rigged presidential election over the past week. Protestors by the millions, violent reprisals from black-shirted thugs on motorcycles, and the blood of innocents running in the streets. You might think these demonstrations are simply a reaction to the past election, protests by an angry public, but it really is much more than that.
This is a revolution.
In Iran there is no such thing as free speech, or right to congregate, or any of the personal freedoms that many of us take for granted. Iran is a theocracy, and in a theocracy there is no such thing as dissent. When a Supreme Leader is believed to take his orders from God, there really isn’t as lot of room for disagreement.
When Mir-Hossein Mousavi challenged Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s pronouncement that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had won the election last week, and released a statement demanding the election be overturned, he wasn’t just simply protesting the results, he was instigating a revolution. After all, if the Ayatollah has the ear of God, and you stand up to him, what does that make you? This has now become a life or death situation for Mousavi and his supporters.
The people of Iran are looking for change however, without the explicit moral support of the United States, a beacon of freedom to the world for the past 200+ years, it will far more difficult for the Iranian revolutionaries to succeed. As commentators have routinely pointed out, many of the signs held up by the protestors are in English. They want and need our support.
While President Obama condemned the "threats, beatings and imprisonments of the last few days" on Tuesday, he still did not reject the premise that engagement with the repressive leaders of Iran as the way forward. In fact he went on to say "I have made it clear that the United States respects the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and is not interfering in Iran's affairs.” In addition, President Obama has ruled out any change in US policy towards Iran. "We are going to monitor and see how this plays itself out before we make any adjustments about how we proceed."
Millions of Iranians have protested in the streets. While their cause may be just, there is no guarantee they will win this fight. The protests may simply simmer out and Ayatollah Khamenei may very well hang on to power. If he does, it would be a safe bet that he and his cronies will be looking for payback.
The question will then remain, how brutal will the reprisals be? This is a government that routinely puts political dissidents in jail, supports the killing of gay people and other minorities, funds proxy wars against the Israel and the United States, and routinely beats their own women for the most minor of “moral” infractions. If the election protests end with Ayatollah Khamenei still in power, are hundreds or perhaps even thousands of Iranians going to be taken away by the secret police to never be seen again?
President Obama’s wait and see policy can serve no good purpose. If the protestors win, we look weak and somewhat hypocritical for not supporting them earlier. If Ayatollah Khomeini comes out on top, he can consolidate his power by imprisoning and killing dissidents without any fear of American reprisal. If President Obama can withhold criticism of a government that so brutally represses their own people for days, he probably won’t have much to say when people start disappearing in the night.
The longer the protests and violence continue the more President Obama’s policy of engagement with Iran looks completely divorced from reality. Initiating meaningful negotiations with the tyrannical Iranian regime after a bloodbath is just not going to look good no matter how you spin it, even by the Obama loving press.
Over 200 years ago France supported the United States during the American Revolution, and we still remember it. We also recall Neville Chamberlain’s policies of appeasement prior to World War II as a terrible mistake. What side of history are we going to be on this time?
