Posted by
Bert Chapman on Wednesday, June 17, 2009 4:34:15 PM
The turmoil following Iran's "election" has been interesting to watch. Any discomfort for Ahmadinejad and his Islamist galoots is to be welcomed. We don't know how widespread this unrest is. Does it only cover more liberal elites in Tehran or has it reached to other Iranian cities or even the countryside. If it reaches Ahmadinejad's peasant base than the bearded holocaust denier could be toast. Opposition leader Hossein Mousavi is not a western liberal Democrat who would be welcome in Georgetown or Manhattan's Upper EAst side salons with Obama and our chattering classes. He's just a less obnoxious version of the Khomeini revolution who keeps a neat beard and some semblance of sartorial decency unlike Ahmadinejad. Mousavi is a creature of the Islamic Republic having been a Prime Minister during the 1980s and even if we were to come to power through some miraculous upheaval, he would not pursue radically different policies.
This is a regime that will continue seeking to cut off Iranians contact with the outside world so it can engage in Tiananmien Square style crackdowns against the young people who despise it. These young people, thanks to the Internet and satellite television, know how far behind Iran is in terms of economic development and social equality for women. There numbers are growing and it's possible that at some point in the future they may be able to overthrow the Khomeini created Islamist gangsta regime which has squandered their oil wealth through a disastrous war with Iraq, trying to build a dangerous nuclear weapons capability, and supporting Islamist terrorists in far flung locales. It would be nice if Iran used its human capital and significant historical cultural legacy to build a moderate Western oriented quasi-democratic state that didn't adhere to infantile ideological animosity toward Israel and the U.S. It would take a couple of decades of religious and intellectual reengineering for that to happen.
Obama and other western leaders will make the usual impotent denunciations of this election fraud but will be unwilling to take steps that would make the Iranians hurt like freeze Iranian assets or fund covert action against the ayatollah's regime such as damaging Iran's antiquated petroleum infrastructure. The regime probably has a better than 50/50 chance of surviving and becoming more emboldened which will increase the possibility that we and the Israelis will need to take military action to destroy the nascent Iranian nuclear arsenal.
Obama is slowly finding out that his promises of new engagement and dialogue with this terrorist regime are being rebuffed and that U.S.a and regional Mideast security are in further jeopardy because of his appalling naivete.