In the course of wondering whether Iranian agents were going to be instigating attacks in Britain as payback for its many hurts to Iran, British columnist Melanie Phillips speculates why Obama did not forcefully stand up for freedom and democracy in Iran when it counted. She is thoroughly disgusted with his failure and the possible reasons for it.
What a disgrace that this man is leader of the free world; and at such a point in history. If he had put America stoutly behind the protesters and championed them against the regime, by now they might have toppled it.
Phillips is the best-selling author of Londonistan, the shocking account of how British officialdom allowed if not facilitated the creation of the most dangerous Islamist terrorist nest in Europe in Britain.
The Iran Crisis
Melanie Phillips The Spectator, London
Wednesday, 24th June 2009
There is chatter in some quarters that the Iranian 'green revolution' may be petering out. Well, it depends whom you're reading.
The Iran expert Michael Ledeen says he has no idea what's going to happen. But there are signs that the regime is preparing for an all-out assault; and that they are panicking and the ayatollahs are at odds amongst themselves; and that, most interestingly of all, this:
...that there are cracks in the regime's edifice, ranging from declarations of small groups of Revolutionary Guards calling on their brothers to defect to "the people," to a phenomenon that is just beginning to be discussed here and there, mostly on the Net but originally in an Arab newspaper. Steve Schippert posted on it and did a first-class analysis. Steve starts with a report from al Arabiya that says senior ayatollahs have been meeting secretly in Qom to discuss significant changes in the structure of the Iranian state. In addition to the Iranian clerics, there was a foreigner: Jawad al-Shahristani, the supreme representative of Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the foremost Shiite leader in Iraq.
If this is true, it is, as Steve says, huge. Because it means that senior religious leaders in Iran are talking to the representative of an Iraqi Imam who believes, as most Shi'ites did before Khomeini's heresy, that the proper role of religious leaders is to guide their people from the mosque, not from the political capital. In other words, they are talking about the most serious form of regime change.
As Ledeen also says, however, the protesters know they are on their own facing the thugs of the basiji. Despite Obama's belated condemnation today of the brutality being meted out, his remarks were far too little, far too late and still far too inadequate. As Mladen Andrijasevic notes, his strategy of engaging the regime remains, regardless of how many protesters have been killed, tortured or jailed -- and will remain, it would appear, even if worse happens in the days to come. And as Joseph Ashby devastatingly notes :
Obama believes, on some significant level, the propaganda promoted by America's enemies that the United States is the main instigator and perpetrator of international unrest. So shockingly, amazingly, unbelievably, Obama is saying that Iran may very well use America as a propaganda tool, but at least this time they won't be right.
What a disgrace that this man is leader of the free world; and at such a point in history. If he had put America stoutly behind the protesters and championed them against the regime, by now they might have toppled it. There are signs today that even the fawning American media is appalled.
In a standfirst to an article by Joshua Muravchik observing that the Iran debacle confirms that Obama has totally abandoned the long-standing American objective to promote human rights and democracy, Commentary has this to say:
Iranian exiles in the U.S. are receiving calls from back home asking why President Obama has 'given Khamenei the green light' to crack down on the election protestors. To conspiracy-minded Middle Easterners, that is the obvious meaning of Obama's equivocal response to the Iranian nation's sudden and unexpected reach for freedom. How to explain that this interpretation is implausible? That the more likely reason for Obama's behavior is that he is imprisoned in the ideology of loving your enemies and hating George W. Bush?
Whatever the reason, Obama's failure may destroy his presidency. His betrayal of democracy and human rights through a series of pronouncements and small actions during his first months in office had been correctable until now. But the thousand daily decisions that usually make up policy are eclipsed by big-bang moments such as we are now witnessing. Failure to use the bully pulpit to give the Iranian people as much support as possible is morally reprehensible and a strategical blunder for which he will not be forgiven.
Ledeen also says this: that there are
...reliable accounts that Khamenei has left Tehran for a mountain retreat, and has given orders to his people to go all-out in the coming days, not only against the dissidents in Iran, but also against any and all American, British, French and German targets.. . . .
Vigilance required.
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