The blessed opinion editors at WSJ today supply dispatches from Iranians in touch with and involved with the current protests. We urge their reading, not least because they, like many similar dispatches from Iraq, dispel the blandly condescending notion that folks in the Middle East aren't ready for democracy. Whatever one thinks of the tactics of Dubya's muscular Wilsonianism, certainly the foundations--that all peoples deserve and desire self-determination--are unshakable.
Meanwhile the blessed Charles Krauthammer is again flaying Obama, this week for his failure to speak up in favor of the Iranian protesters. Sympathetic to all who ask the American President to speak up for global democracy, we express some sympathy for what we expect is Obama's reticence to identify the protesters as supported by the United States and so hand the theocratic regieme a propaganda victory.
That having been said, we note how the blessed President Reagan's bold support for Solidarity in Poland and for Soviet dissidents, especially on his famous Moscow summit with Gorbachev, proved vital to the blessed success of those historic liberators.
On the other hand, George H. W. Bush's hands-off approach to Tiananmen didn't help anyone except the ChiComs.
Of course, Obama is no Reagan, even as he asserts strongly that he is no Bush either. So we await further developments.
2 comments:
Wow - that post was almost, if not completely, balanced. Therefore I will not cancel my subscription.
Fair and balanced?
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