I've been generally supportive of the President's approach to the situation in Iran. Here's another more articulate defense.
For me, the question is "what are we prepared to do to implement our policy goals?" If we make it our policy goal to support a bottom-up revolution, then what are we willing to do to support it? Will we fund it? Will we provide intelligence? Will we provide military support? Exactly what is it we are prepared to deliver to the Iranian people along with our exhortations to continue marching and resisting? Will we make promises? Will we keep them?
Our history shows us examples of where our cheap, idealistic cheerleading for freedom leads to the deaths of those we pushed (Hungary 1956, Southern Iraq 1991). You don't cheerlead unless you're willing to do the hard dirty work of helping the people you are emboldening.
Well said.
ReplyDeleteThe Iranian people did not require cheerleading from outside sources to overthrow the Sahah and eastablish their present Islamic Republic. All it took was for President Carter to do nothing.
ReplyDeleteNot all revolutions require external support.
Your historical accuracy flies in the face of your equally constructive reasoning. Such well thought wisdom has no place on the internet, but I'll forgive you this time.
ReplyDeleteI repeat from a previous post;
ReplyDeleteThe streets of Iran are filled with people protesting for and against the sitting government.
People are being beaten and shot. The Mullahs are preaching to the masses.
The President of the United States presiding over a failing economy with rising unemployment does not want to get too involved and sends out conflicting signals that embolden the hard-liners.
Today? under the administration of President Barak Obama? No. It was thirty years ago last January during the administration of President Jimmy Carter that my wife, son and I were forced to flee the Iranian Islamic revolution on a Pan American Airlines charter flight back to the United States.
It seems like déjà vu all over again