My Only Thoughts on Perplexing Persian Politics (Updated)
Posted on June 14th, 2009
by Nathan P. Origer |
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MINT-AND-CORN COUNTRY, INDIANA — I certainly have no love for Dr. Ahmadinejad (although he does have a transportation planning degree!), and have no doubt that the Persian people — and the rest of the world — would be better off were democracy (as they, rather than we, envision it, comporting to their cultural norms) to be reinvigorated in Iran, but that this election, fraudulent as its results may be, is attracting the attention that it is Stateside troubles me slightly. It really does not matter to us — unless we continue with foreign-policy tomfoolery that makes it urgent. As the cover article of the most recent print edition of TAC adeptly notes, even a nuclear Iran is no threat, so perhaps we ought to worry less about whether the man who next presides as Persian puppet-in-chief does so rightly or not and more about the next town board or county commissioner elections.
Update: Awesome! President Obama, Epic FAIL:
“It would be wrong for me to be silent on what we’ve seen on the television the last few days,” Obama told reporters at the White House.
And the liberal internationalist we all know and loathe inserts his toes between his cheeks!
What’s really awful is that no matter what happens now, the neocons and liberal hawks will push for more hostility toward Iran. If, as I suspect will happen, Ahmadinejad consolidates power by taking further repressive measures, our immoral foreign-policy moralists will be all the more bellicose toward his country. But if the protests somehow topple him, the hawks will claim to be oh-so-surprised when the next regime is something less than a liberal democracy and staunch ally of Israel. They’ll exploit false expectations to make a case that the West must now be even more paranoid, since if even the “reformers” are bad, surely the country cannot be made good until U.S. troops bring real American democracy to the country.
Daniel, I fear that you are right. Thus, I believe that, in contemporary Internet lingo, the appropriate response is something to the effect of “FML.”
Whichever of the outcomes prevails, I’m curious to see how the Obama Administration reacts. This, more than anything directly related to Israel, may be the real test of the the president’s mettle and the sincerity with which he adheres to “Change.”