The Limits of Control
June 23, 2009
President Obama has no clue how to handle the crisis in Iran. I’d love to mock him for that–but I’m not sure how it should be handled either.
Normally, this would be an easy call: I’d join the conservative pundits and Republican politicians who say Obama should strongly support the Iranians who are protesting the stolen June 12 election. Why not stand with the forces of democracy, the forces allied against “re-elected” President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?
However, nothing about this situation is easy.
Nine times out of ten, I line up with the foreign-policy vision of the so-called “neoconservatives.” If “neoconservatism” is defined as the belief that the spread of democracy worldwide will lead to the lessening of international tensions, then consider me a devout follower. If I were President, I’d nominate William Kristol for Secretary of Defense, and Irving Kristol for Secretary of State.
Yet “neoconservatism” does have its limitations, and we may be seeing those limitations on display in the right’s general reaction to the Iran situation.
You don’t have to be a hardcore left-winger to realize that there may be unforeseen consequences if Obama gives an official thumbs-up to the protesters. We’re not terribly popular in Iran; we haven’t been liked since Operation Ajax. They didn’t hold fifty-two Americans hostage for fourteen months because they thought we were such nice guys.
As George Will pointed out in a June 21 appearance on ABC’s This Week, “…The people on the streets [in Iran] know full well what the American attitude toward the regime is. And they don’t need that reinforced.” Two days prior, Peggy Noonan touched upon a similar theme in the Wall Street Journal:
“To insist the American president, in the first days of the rebellion, insert the American government into the drama was shortsighted and mischievous. The ayatollahs were only too eager to demonize the demonstrators as mindless lackeys of the Great Satan Cowboy Uncle Sam, or whatever they call us this week…Should there at this point, more than a week into the story, be a formal declaration of support from the U.S. government? Certainly it’s time for an indignant statement on the abuses, including killings and beatings, perpetrated by the government and against the opposition. It’s never wrong to be on the side of civilization. Beyond that, what would be efficacious? It must be asked if a formal statement of support for the rebels would help them. And they’d have a better sense of it than we.”
Of course, the main problem with the idea of Obama endorsing the protesters is that the anti-Ahmadinejad activists backed a candidate who isn’t that much of an improvement over the incumbent, from a Western standpoint. We are supposed to believe that Mir-Hossein Mousavi is an Iranian moderate, that he will not burn with contempt towards Israel, that he is not the demented, demonic figure Ahmadinejad has revealed himself to be. In order words, we are supposed to forget that the former Prime Minister was allegedly involved in the October 1983 Marine barracks bombing in Beirut, Lebanon. It is hard to believe that certain conservatives who encouraged Americans not to forget about William Ayers’ history of radicalism in 2008 now apparently want Americans to forget about Mousavi’s history of radicalism in 2009.
Yes, there is an irresistible urge among American conservatives to support foreigners who appear to be freedom fighters, as well as an irresistible urge to expose Obama as a wimp. However, irresistible urges are the most dangerous urges of all, no?
My heart wants to criticize Obama for his caution, but my head does not. The “neoconservative” instinct—a basic instinct, if you will—compels me to denounce Obama as a coward, to declare that Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush would not have hesitated to use the Presidential bully pulpit to embrace the cause of Iranian democracy. Yet there are realities that temper this instinct—the realities of a complex situation in a complex world.
Is Obama wrong? Are the “neoconservatives” wrong? Are Will and Noonan wrong? Are the protesters actually wrong? Or is there no real “wrong” or “right” answer?
Has Obama shown real leadership with regard to Iran? Considering what’s at stake, is it even possible for him to do so?
The President is trying to be neither belligerent nor bland. It would be nice to see him be bold—but in this case, how does one define boldness?
