Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the “observer in chief.” So fearful of making the wrong move, he opts instead to do nothing. The leader of the world’s largest and most influential democracy, he won’t even stand up for the basic principles on which the country was founded and by which he was elected.
He says, tepidly at best, that "people's voices should be heard and not suppressed." Way to go out on a limb. He might as well be discussing the mini-controversy surrounding the final voting on American Idol and not a dispute about a sham election in a theocratic country run by Islamic extremists who control every aspect of daily life.
This was an election in name only. No one can run for president who isn’t approved by the Guardian Council which is comprised of six members appointed by the Supreme Leader and six others selected by the Majlis. This Guardian Council ensures that no true reformist candidate ever runs for president as they only approve candidates who are dedicated to Islamic values as they see them.
Regardless of whether Mousavi was, in truth, a “reform” candidate, it is clear that as between him and Ahmadinejad, Mousavi was the lesser of two evils and a more “democratic” candidate.
Mousavi ran on a platform that sounded some familiar democratic themes: to institutionalize social justice, equality and fairness, freedom of expression, and to root out corruption. He supported private ownership of the TV airwaves and moving supervision of the police to the President and away from the Supreme Leader.
Mousavi also took a less hard line on the U.S. and Israel and, unlike his opponent who denies the Holocaust, denounced the killing of Jews.
When it was announced that Ahmadinejad had won – indeed had won in a landslide – the news was disappointing to the West. But when further news started coming out of Iran that pointed to voting irregularities – for example, Mousavi’s home town voting overwhelmingly for his opponent – that was even more troubling for the West.
So how did Obama react to the news that the election may have been a sham? Obama said that he had "deep concerns" about the election and "stands strongly with the universal principle that people's voices should be heard and not suppressed."
He hastened to add, however, that "how that plays out over the next several days and several weeks is something ultimately for the Iranian people to decide."
Not exactly, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” material. No, Obama sounds much more like Jimmy Carter … and we know how well that worked out for U.S. foreign policy.
Before the election, Obama was quick to paint Mousavi’s candidacy as a victory for Obama’s approach in Iran. “We are excited to see what appears to be a robust debate taking place in Iran,” Obama was quoted as saying. “Obviously, after the speech that I made in Cairo, we tried to send a clear message that we think there is the possibility of change.”
“Ultimately, the election is for the Iranians to decide, but just as has been true in Lebanon, what can be true in Iran as well is that you’re seeing people looking at new possibilities,” the president said. “Whoever ends up winning the election in Iran, the fact that there’s been a robust debate hopefully will help advance our ability to engage them in new ways.”
Well, the “robust debate” ended up with the status quo – no change, no reform and a slap on the hand of anyone hoping for any form of democracy in that country. Protests were met harshly and reports are that over twenty protesters have been killed. Communication from Iran to the outside world is being hampered by the government and the foreign media is being limited in what it can show of what is going on there.
Foreign leaders have taken a clear stand against the violence in Iran, with Britain's Gordon Brown saying that the European Union unanimously condemns violence against protesters and the German Prime Minister using similarly straight-forward language in denouncing the attacks on protesters.
This is what the president has said of these recent developments:
“Obviously all of us have been watching the news from Iran. And I want to start off by being very clear that it is up to Iranians to make decisions about who Iran's leaders will be; that we....respect Iranian sovereignty and want to avoid the United States being the issue inside of Iran, which sometimes the United States can be a handy political football -- or discussions with the United States.
Having said all that, I am deeply troubled by the violence that I've been seeing on television. I think that the democratic process -- free speech, the ability of people to peacefully dissent -- all those are universal values and need to be respected. And whenever I see violence perpetrated on people who are peacefully dissenting, and whenever the American people see that, I think they're, rightfully, troubled.
My understanding is, is that the Iranian government says that they are going to look into irregularities that have taken place. We weren’t on the ground, we did not have observers there, we did not have international observers on hand, so I can't state definitively one way or another what happened with respect to the election.
But what I can say is that there appears to be a sense on the part of people who were so hopeful and so engaged and so committed to democracy who now feel betrayed. And I think it's important that, moving forward, whatever investigations take place are done in a way that is not resulting in bloodshed and is not resulting in people being stifled in expressing their views.
Now, with respect to the United States and our interactions with Iran, I've always believed that as odious as I consider some of President Ahmadinejad's statements, as deep as the differences that exist between the United States and Iran on a range of core issues, that the use of tough, hard-headed diplomacy -- diplomacy with no illusions about Iran and the nature of the differences between our two countries -- is critical when it comes to pursuing a core set of our national security interests, specifically, making sure that we are not seeing a nuclear arms race in the Middle East triggered by Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon; making sure that Iran is not exporting terrorist activity. Those are core interests not just to the United States but I think to a peaceful world in general.
We will continue to pursue a tough, direct dialogue between our two countries, and we'll see where it takes us. But even as we do so, I think it would be wrong for me to be silent about what we've seen on the television over the last few days.
And what I would say to those people who put so much hope and energy and optimism into the political process, I would say to them that the world is watching and inspired by their participation, regardless of what the ultimate outcome of the election was. And they should know that the world is watching.
And particularly to the youth of Iran, I want them to know that we in the United States do not want to make any decisions for the Iranians, but we do believe that the Iranian people and their voices should be heard and respected.”
That's it -- the extent of the U.S. President's interest in Iran is that he'll be watching. He has no opinion, he has no suggestions, he has no requests, he has no preference and little reaction beyond the stalwart "deeply troubled" -- whatever that means.
Obama has perfected the art of saying very little in quite a few words. He is troubled that the election may have been stolen, he is troubled that protesters are being treated harshly, he is troubled that the perception that there was a chance for reform in Iran was just an act. Troubled?
But that's as far as he's willing to go. He's happy to sit back and watch as events unfold. That is not leadership -- that's disengagement.
Obama's VP, known for his lack of self-censorship, said, of Iran, “There's an awful lot of questions about how this election was run." True, Joe, but your president isn’t asking for any answers. He’ll just wait and see. He's no meddler.
No comments:
Post a Comment