HOUSE VIOLATES OBAMA'S POLICY OF NOT "MEDDLING" IN IRANIAN ELECTION

Think Progress reports on the resolution adopted by the House supporting the Iranian protesters who support Mir Hussein Moussavi.

Why must the House go on record as supporting the demonstrators in Iran? Iranians are not holding up signs asking for American "help." The resolution of the House is a good pretext for the Ahmadi forces to quell the peaceful demonstration with force. If it can be shown that Americans are "for" the anti-Ahmadi candidate, Moussavi, then I, if I were Iranian, would switch sides and support Ahmadinejad.

WOLFOWITZ, NEO-CON ARCHITECT OF WAR IN IRAQ, OBJECTS TO OBAMA'S POLICY OF NOT MEDDLING IN IRANIAN ELECTIONS

Paul Wolfowitz, one of the architects of the War in Iraq, writes an op-ed in today's The Washington Post, criticizing Barack Obama for his policy of purposely not meddling in the Iranian elections.

Writes Wolfowitz:

"It would be a cruel irony if, in an effort to avoid imposing democracy, the United States were to tip the scale toward dictators who impose their will on people struggling for freedom. And if we appear so desperate for negotiations that we will abandon those who support our principles, we weaken our own negotiating hand."

First of all, it would be a huge mistake for Obama to wade in with his support of the demonstrators. For the last 100 years or more, the United States has continuously butted into Iran's affairs. At the beginning of the 20th Century, it was to seize control of Iran's mineral resources. Then in 1953, the U.S. engineered an overthrow of Iran's democratically elected government, this time, in the name of controlling Iran's oil deposits. It was the CIA which helped the Shah regain despotic control over Iranians. Because of the U.S. interference, Iranians are very wary of further American attempts at influence. Wolwowitz seems to have little awareness of Iranian suspicions.

If Obama and the U.S. followed Wolfie's advice, it very well could lead to another confrontation with an Islamic state. Remember what happened with Wolfowitz's advice about invading Iraq. A failed policy that still handcuffs the United States to keeping 100,000+ soldiers there. Now Wolfie wants Obama to take sides in the Iranian elections.

Consider that no Iranian protester holds a sign that says, "We want the U.S. to intervene and help us." No, Iranians of all persuasions would recoil from any meddling by Obama. Any insertion of American views or preferences by the U.S. would turn even the protesting Iranians against the U.S. and possibly make them commit to the other side.

Wolfie's advice is again short-sighted and shallow on a matter affecting U.S. foreign policy towards an Islamic nation. How did this guy ever become Asst. Sec. DOD?

PERMIT NO AMERICAN INTERFERENCE IN IRAN!

We need to respect Iranian society in this troubled time of charges about the fairness of the recent election. Obama is doing exactly the right thing, not interfering in an Iranian matter.

Americans who believe in "American exceptionalism" try to say that the U.S. has a responsibility to declare on the side of Moussavi and the Greens. But this presupposes that Americans are smarter than Iranians.

After having interfered with Iran and its society for the last 100 years or more, the U.S. should let Iranians handle this current problem, and trust in Iranians to do the right thing, instead of attempting to dictate to them what they should do.

LET IRANIANS TAKE CARE OF AHMADINEJAD, U.S. SHOULD NOT INTERVENE

Anita Ghazarian writes on Facebook:

"Obama is doing exactly THE RIGHT THING: KEEPING QUIET.

"The reason Iranians have had such negative feelings about Iran and England is because of a history of colonization/ neocolonization and meddling in their affairs, deposing their democratic gov in 1953 and installing a puppet Shah. Should the West take sides, they will be dooming those they wish to help by marking them as agents of foreign influence& mere puppets and they will try to unite the country against a treacherous outsider power mongering. WE MUST STAY OUT OF IT.

""Given Iran's well-known allergy to foreign meddling--and the hardliners' adept ability to justify their harsh repression by blaming alleged foreign plots--the Obama administration is doing exactly the right thing. Just as the absolute worst thing the US government could have done in the days leading up to the elections was impose new sanctions to "cripple" Iran's economy, the worst thing the administration could do now is take sides in the political infighting."

I fully agree with Anita Ghazarian's post today on the importance of not meddling in the latest developments in Iran. Iran has too long suffered from colonialist interference and meddling. Iranians are well able to take care of the problem by themselves without any interference by Obama, Brown, or the other "great powers."

NEO-CONS ATTACK IRANIAN ELECTIONS, BASH OBAMA FOR WILLING TO TALK WITH IRANIANS

Charles Krauthammer writes in today's The Washington Post:

"That's the problem with Obama's transcultural evenhandedness. It gives the veneer of professorial sophistication to the most simple-minded observation: Of course there are rights and wrongs in all human affairs. Our species is a fallen one. But that doesn't mean that these rights and wrongs are of equal weight.

"A CIA rent-a-mob in a coup 56 years ago does not balance the hostage-takings, throat-slittings, terror bombings and wanton slaughters perpetrated for 30 years by a thug regime in Tehran (and its surrogates) that our own State Department calls the world's "most active state sponsor of terrorism.""

So it seems that together with Elliott Abrams in today's The New York Times the strategy of neo-cons like Abrams and Krauthammer is to bash both Obama and Iran. The one thing these guys could not stand is a genuine dialogue with Teheran securing peace between the U.S. and Iran, a development that both Abrams and Krauthammer and fellow American neo-cons would be against. Their whole game plan of demonizing Iranians and Iran would be halted and any opening for Israel to bomb Iranian cities would be eliminated.

Abrams tries to diminish the importance of today's Iranian elections. He calls them not democratic, not offering any real choice, doomed to fail.

Writes Abrams:

"Mr. Ahmadinejad’s defeat would probably be welcomed abroad as a sign that Iran is moving away from his policies, but Iran’s policies aren’t his — they are dictated by Ayatollah Khamenei and his supporters in the Revolutionary Guard and Basij paramilitary. In fact, a victory by Mr. Ahmadinejad’s main challenger, Mir Hussein Moussavi, is more likely to change Western policy toward Iran than to change Iran’s own conduct. If the delusion that a new president would surely mean new opportunities to negotiate away Iran’s nuclear program strikes Western leaders, solidarity might give way to pre-emptive concessions."

Both Abrams and Krauthammer resent that Obama has admitted U.S. complicity in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government in 1953. For them, it calls into question American exceptionalism, the doctrine that the U.S. can do no wrong.

Writes Krauthammer:

"Distorting history is not truth-telling but the telling of soft lies. Creating false equivalencies is not moral leadership but moral abdication. And hovering above it all, above country and history, is a sign not of transcendence but of a disturbing ambivalence toward one's own country."

From the above paragraph, the reader is left wondering in what psychological state Krauthammer finds himself. He accuses Obama of "disturbing ambivalence towards one's own country," as if overture to Iran and acceptance of Iran's elections as fair and democratic indicate ambivalence towards being an American. Someone help this poor guy with counselling.