Northbound

I agree with Robert Kagan about what President Obama is doing:

The United States had to provide some guarantee to the regime that it would no longer support opposition forces or in any way seek its removal. The idea was that the United States could hardly expect the Iranian regime to negotiate on core issues of national security, such as its nuclear program, so long as Washington gave any encouragement to the government’s opponents. Obama had to make a choice, and he made it.

Now, look.  I think this strategy sucks noodles.  Oodles of Noodles, even.  I miss the old axis-of-evil days.  I think the only thing wrong with axis-of-evil is that GWB didn’t talk about it enough, or at least try and defend it against people who thought that the axis of evil was Bush-Cheney-Rove.  I think we ought to be telling the world that the mullahs are dictators, that their theocracy is a pretext for theft and regional ambition, and that the Iranian people are enslaved.  I think we ought to be joining Iranians in saying that their election process is a mockery.  I think we ought to hang I’m-A-Dinner-Jacket from a sour apple tree, and that every day that he breathes air and eats hummus is a reproach upon our banners.

But I’m not President, and that’s probably a good thing.

Obama is President, and he is doing absolutely the right thing – the only thing he can do, which is to keep his big fat mouth shut.  (Anyone who doesn’t think that’s the best strategy in most instances has never been married.)

Kagan:

Whatever his personal sympathies may be, if he is intent on sticking to his original strategy, then he can have no interest in helping the opposition. His strategy toward Iran places him objectively on the side of the government’s efforts to return to normalcy as quickly as possible, not in league with the opposition’s efforts to prolong the crisis.

This is exactly correct.  I don’t agree that putting out a hand to the mullahs is the best way to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons, but if that’s what Obama wants to do (and he won the election, after all, saying he would do just that, even when everybody from HRC on down opposed him) then he can’t slap that same hand by giving any public support to the students.

The Tiananmen Square anniversary is this summer, and it’s instructive to look at that example to see how America should respond to democratic unrest overseas.  A million people gathered in the heart of a corrupt, evil Communist government to call for greater democracy, and what did the President do?  He “implied that the action could damage relations” with Beijing.  That’ll show ‘em.  There was (still is, according to Wikipedia) an arms embargo in place.  That’ll really teach ‘em.

Could we have condemned China more?  Yes.  Should we have?  Probably.  Would the Chinese be buying up all our debt and selling us lots of cheap knockoffs now if we had?  Maybe not.

The West’s failure to support the students of Tiananmen Square was a betrayal, an immoral act of cowardice.  But it was the prudent thing to do at the time, and that counts for something.  Obama is being prudent here, and that’s not a bad thing, and he shouldn’t be kicked around for it.

UPDATE:  Krauthammer sees the same parallels to Tiananmen that I do:

This started out about election fraud. But like all revolutions, it has far outgrown its origins. What’s at stake now is the very legitimacy of this regime — and the future of the entire Middle East.

This revolution will end either as a Tiananmen (a hot Tiananmen with massive and bloody repression or a cold Tiananmen with a finer mix of brutality and co-optation) or as a true revolution that brings down the Islamic Republic.

The latter is improbable but, for the first time in 30 years, not impossible.

The last line is the key for me.  I don’t think the protesters can win.  I don’t think they can beat the mullahs – or at least that’s the way to bet – that’s certainly the way Obama is betting.  Krauthammer argues that the risk of helping the protesters is worth the reward:

Imagine the repercussions. It would mark a decisive blow to Islamist radicalism, of which Iran today is not just standard-bearer and model, but financier and arms supplier. It would do to Islamism what the collapse of the Soviet Union did to communism — leave it forever spent and discredited.

In the region, it would launch a second Arab spring. The first in 2005 — the expulsion of Syria from Lebanon, the first elections in Iraq and early liberalization in the Gulf states and Egypt — was aborted by a fierce counterattack from the forces of repression and reaction, led and funded by Iran.

Now, with Hezbollah having lost elections in Lebanon and with Iraq establishing the institutions of a young democracy, the fall of the Islamist dictatorship in Iran would have an electric and contagious effect. The exception — Iraq and Lebanon — becomes the rule. Democracy becomes the wave. Syria becomes isolated; Hezbollah and Hamas, patronless. The entire trajectory of the region is reversed.

All hangs in the balance.

I just think that’s a lot of hope to hang on the slim thread of Iranian revolution.  In my view (and I could be wrong about this) the United States should be the patron of the Iranian revolution, in Dr. Johnson’s sense of the word – “Is not a Patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and,when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help?”