The Redhunter

President Obama and his players have spent six months praying for the nascent revolution in Iran to go away, pursuing what Fouad Ajami describes today as a cold-blooded foreign policy. Some of them who should know better have likely admitted the truth to themselves during 2 AM night-sweat sessions: there is nothing worthy about the behavior of the U.S. government they represent in this matter. The jettisoning of human rights, the accusation against predecessors, the willful blindness to reality, the active undermining of pro-democracy activist groups, all constitute a dangerous slouch toward the obscene cowardice that blighted Europe in the face of the Nazis. But the uprising that has proved so disadvantageous to the Obamic foreign policy enterprise is refusing to die, and the quavering has got to stop. There are only two positions here--the right side and the wrong side. With rare exceptions, this president's willful blindness to the great moral weight of America has stood us on the wrong side wherever the lives of subjugated peoples have been at stake. But it's not too late to make things right with those Iranians bleeding in the streets for their freedom. They need us. They need to hear our voices raised full-throat in support of them and against their oppressors and murderers just as do those terrorized souls living at the mercy of the sadistic Burmese junta, or subsisting on acorns and pine cones in the North Korean gulag, or dying every day with the assistance of the Sudanese tyranny.

Knowing we're with them, really with them, even if only in spirit, could save them, as every survivor of Soviet domination will attest; and in telling them so we could rediscover the moral center in our great fight in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Far from being a distraction, the protesters are the main issue. As long as the theocratic government remains in power, Iran will be a cancer, stirring up trouble from Iraq to Lebanon.

I've kind of lost track of events in Iran these past few days, being consumed with other matters. They seem to have died down, perhaps because of the wave of arrests it made following the large protests on Ashura, December 27. Indeed, the government brought out it's own supporters on Dec 30. Billed as a "million man march," it's unclear how many actually showed up.

It's a bit old now, but Michael Ledeen gave a good update of the situation last Thursday, December 28:

Here are the key points from Iran over the last 3-4 days: First, in line with my basic sermon these many years, if you study the videos you will see many many women in the front ranks. They have every reason to be there, as the Islamic Republic (like so many Islamic regimes) is built on the sludge of misogyny.

Second, many of the evil Basij goons wore masks. This is new, and it indicates fear that they will be identified and hunted down. The conflict is ever more violent: On several occasions, crowds attacked security forces, even dragging them out of cars -- and then, cursing them, letting them run away.

Third, in another ominous development for the regime, people from the southern (lower-class) neighborhoods of Tehran joined in. The revolt is now very broad based. But it is not yet powerful enough for the Bazaaris to join: Today the Tehran Bazaar was open for business.

Fourth, the regime has been stripped of religious legitimacy by its own panic-driven brutality. By invading mosques and hosseiniyas, by assaulting family members of leading clerics (Grand Ayatollah Sanei is under house arrest), and by ordering murder on Ashura, the supreme leader has violated a whole series of previously sacrosanct rules. I will be surprised if we do not soon hear from Iraq's Grand Ayatollah Sistani.

Finally, there is still no national strike of the sort that paralyzed the shah's regime 31 years ago. But this may come: There were Twitter reports yesterday saying that Mousavi was calling for a strike on January 7.

There is now a state of emergency throughout the country (although some cities are still in open revolt), and many angry calls for the arrest of Mousavi and Karroubi, which would surely provoke more massive demonstrations and perhaps even the use of weapons by the people (even today, Molotov cocktails were thrown at security forces in central Tehran). If this were a normal regime, I'd expect a cooling-down period; but it isn't a normal regime, so it's unpredictable.

Meanwhile, the Western world clicks its collective tongue and criticizes "the violence" and the lack of respect for rights of free speech and assembly, as if that were the point. Not a single Western "leader" has found the nerve and the common sense to denounce the regime and call for regime change. Indeed, President Obama couldn't drag himself away from the beach and the basketball court on Oahu to say anything at all. Nor could our secretary of state. Or Robert Gates, for that matter, whose men and women are being blown up in Iraq and Afghanistan, courtesy of the mullahs.

As a Washington Times article today points out, the bad news is that Iran's opposition movement has yet to produce a charismatic leader," but the good news is that it has "diverse and growing group of organizers, including numerous students and veterans of an abortive 1999 uprising."

Strong but Brittle

One of the arguments Natan Sharansky makes in The Case for Democracy is that tyrannies are at once strong but brittle. By this he means that they are strong in all the ways we think they are; military and police power, the ability to silence critics, and to manipulate or outright control the thought of millions. But a sharp knock in the right place at the right time and the whole thing crumbles almost instantly.

Nicolae Ceauşescu ruled Romania with an iron fist for almost 25 years. His rule appeared as absolute as any. Yet one day in December of 1989 we read about protests in the streets over the eviction of a popular priest. A week or so later Ceauşescu and his wife had fled his capital by helicopter, shortly after to be arrested, brought back to Bucharest, tried and shot on Christmas Day. It all happened so fast no one could quite believe what they were seeing. That it came on the heals of the fall of the Berlin wall a month earlier did not lesson the shock.

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