I come down from my cabin to internet life here in the valley to find some real world news since last I checked, coming from Iran. A stolen election – I see no need to discuss this overmuch, it’s clearly something the Iranian government would willingly do, and there’s evidence enough already – and hundreds of thousands of people emerging to protest the theft. Iran appears to be at a critical moment. That this tumult will bring down the regime is unlikely – religious ideology is enduring, and modern weapons have a terrifying coercive power. But the people who are protesting already knew that, and this has not diminished their numbers. They may have the right leader in Mousavi as well, a man who makes moderation and reform seem attractive. He has none of the belligerent and mildly idiotic showmanship of Ahmadinejad.
Obama’s Cairo speech and Mideast trip was obviously timed for the Iranian election, and it is interesting to speculate how much having an intelligent, mature leader in America – one who came talking peace and engagement – made Ahmadinejad look even more outdated and puny. American politics probably play a relatively small role in Iran, but in crises, small things can alter the entire course of events. Here’s hoping that this moment can put a stamp on Obama’s presidency the way the fall of the Berlin wall did for the first Bush. Obama certainly seems destined to have an interesting term.
4 Comments
i have seen no one make the point about the timing that you did in your post, and it is a critical and definitely true one. we have a very smart president.
I do remember it being mentioned during the coverage – “Obama is here during a crisis in U.S.-Muslim relations and just a week before an election in Iran.” I have no doubt the State Department considered this when discussing the timing.
Mildly idiotic? Have you seen him claiming recently that “Iran is the most stable country in the world”, and calling the protests “celebrations”?
The guy is suffering from a severe mental illness. Not mild idiocy.
Altho admittedly, calling the protests “celebrations” is utterly hilarious.
Well said. But remember that there were plenty of people who gloried in these Ahmadinejad theatrics when they were directed at the big bad U.S. – like his comments claiming that the U.S., as the one nation that had attacked anothed nation with a nuclear weapon and was more responsible for their development, proliferation, and production than any other, was not competent to evaluate the peaceful nuclear programs of other nations. He always got a nice reception at the U.N. General Assembly. The boldness, even ridiculousness, of his comments is part of the point, I think. His perennial claims that Iran has no interest in nuclear weapons are a kind of giant parody of the lies of diplomacy. And Iran has basically been able to string other countries along with this, still getting Germany for a long time and Russia even still to do their nuclear engineering for them. But calling these protests “celebrations” is a lot like his claim that there were no gay people in Iran. It’s so ridiculously outrageous that it appears to be cluelessness.