Iranians will have to change their future

Editorials

June 24, 2009

letters to the editor

By Stephen Dick, The Herald Bulletin in Anderson, Ind. The Commonwealth Journal Wed Jun 24, 2009, 10:24 AM EDT

Iran has been in turmoil for the past week since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was returned to office after what hundreds of thousands of protesters are calling a bogus election.

The protesters’ favored candidate, Mir Hussein Moussavi, has whipped his supporters into a lather about the election.

In democratic countries, this often happens. In Iran, however, it’s only democratic playacting. The mullahs, led by Ayatollah Ali

Khamenei, control and run the country whoever the president is.

Since Ahmadinejad takes a hard-line Islamist, anti-Israel

stance, the mullahs feel he is best equipped to carry out the policies of the theocrats. What’s encouraging is to see so many people protest what they

know to be a rigged election that will deny them the reforms they seek. If they continue, of course, the mullahs will send forth the Revolutionary Guard to force order through bloodshed. Think of the Odessa steps massacre in 1905 Russia or, more recently, China’s military answer to the demonstrations in Tiananmen Square. China is still communist in name but has opened up to the world — notably through the market — in ways that would make Mao Zedong spin in his grave. This can happen in Iran, too, when the people tire of the religious oppression that has held the country in its grip since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

The point is, the Iranians will have to do it themselves. The world will be cheering them on, but the Iranian leaders will use foreign stridency as an excuse to crack down harder. In the U.S., President Obama has taken a measured approach. He has questioned the results of the election but

not separated the protesters and the mullahs into good and evil. He realizes that talking tough is just that, and it accomplishes nothing.

This has opened him up to scurrilous attacks by conservatives hoping to make political hay. Last week, the Republicans in the House offered up a useless resolution to back the Iranian protesters, but it served as a political thumb in the eye to Obama who wants to open up a dialogue with Tehran.

Obama knows that only sitting across the table can thaw relations between the two countries and, maybe, provide some water to the seeds of

democratic change planted by the demonstrators.

It’s a different foreign policy than the U.S. is used to after too many years of conservative bellicosity that assumed the U.S. always has the

moral high ground. The fact is, Iran is where it’s at today because in 1953 the U.S. helped overthrow its government and put in the American friendly

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran. There was oil to be had and the U.S., along with

Britain, didn’t like Iran’s recent change to nationalize its oil production. U.S. foreign policy didn’t care if a country was democratic as long as it offered up its resources for economic pillage. And it still goes on today. It’s time for a change. Conservatives are gung ho behind the Iranian demonstrators, but it’s interesting to note that these would be the very people who would die if the U.S. or Israel carpet-bombed Iran to stop its nuclear activities, as some conservatives wanted to do. It’s also interesting to see what happens when a human face takes the place of brainless jargon like axis of evil.

The first steps toward reform are taking place in Iran. Now, for the U.S., the winning of hearts and minds needs to be attempted, and we’ve finally got a president who understands that.

•••

Stephen Dick writes for The Herald Bulletin

in Anderson, Ind. He can be reached at

steve.dick@heraldbulletin.com.

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