Haven’t We Already Tried Not Meddling?

Although Barack Obama may not realize it (he seems to think that nothing important happened in Iran between 1953 and January 20, 2009), the current demonstrations are not the first large scale protests against the mullarchy. They’ve been a recurrent feature in the history of the “Islamic Republic”, which is, let’s not forget, a medieval dictatorship imposed on what had become, by the last years of the Pahlavi Dynasty, a modernizing nation with a large secular component to its population. Many of those who rioted against the Shah did so in the hope and expectation that his regime would be succeeded by a constitutional democracy, not by an oligarchy of ayatollahs.

Through all those disturbances, the United States, whoever was President, maintained a consistent policy: We did not “meddle”. And every time the sparks of rebellion were ruthlessly stamped out.

It may be that pro-resistance statements by the President would do nothing to weaken the mullahs. On the other hand, if experience teaches anything, it is that silence will not strengthen the protesters.

As a witness to the folly of the President’s limp platitudes, let me call Pat Buchanan, who backed Saddam Hussein in 1991 and 2003 and, so far as I can tell, has never seen an American riposte to despotism for which he wasn’t willing to put in a discouraging word. On cue, his latest screed urges us to do nothing and hope that the mullahs fall without being pushed. He has never in the past shown the slightest desire for their demise. Somehow I doubt that his tactical wisdom should be consulted now. Yet he and President Obama are slouching arm in arm toward another setback for liberty.

Comments

[pbh]

"the difference between Iran and Iraq."

You mean the difference between the 1953 CIA overthrow of Mohammed Mosaddeq in Iran and the more recent invasion of Iraq and subsequent overthrow of Saddam Hussein? If there is a difference it is merely that Eisenhower managed the job at much less expense to the US taxpayer and managed to accomplish his goal without plunging the US economy into the deepest recession since 1929. I seem to recall that IKE also was extremely disturbed by the potential for mischief inherent in what he called the "military industrial complex", something that the Bush crowd has forever been marketing and for which the Iraq war was an unprecedented war of choice windfall.

You mean that kind of a difference?

pbh

[Tom Veal]

I had supposed that even Mr. Hodges knew the difference between Iran and Iraq. How silly of me.

[pbh]

And while we are on the subject, where do you get the notion that our governments have followed a strategy of "not meddling"?

Let us not forget the stupidity of Bush Pere who encouraged the Kurds and others to resist Hussein and then abandoned them to the forces he had just defeated as they subsequently exacted their revenge for their humiliation on the bodies of those that their feckless ally had called forward.

Bush fils, with all too similar incomprehension of the facts on the ground, blithely assumed that our armies would be greeted as liberators and charged forward into his own fiasco.

Would it be too much to ask that at least one administration observe the doctrine of non-interference?

Especially when all evidence suggests that it is working?

pbh

[pbh]

“Pat Buchanan, . . . backed Saddam Hussein in 1991 and 2003”

Buchanan consistently and coherently argued against adventurism in Iraq. That does not in any sense equate to “back[ing] Saddam Hussein”. Your deliberate distortion of this fact thoroughly undermines the rest of your armchair objections, which are clearly less concerned with weakening the mullahs or strengthening the protesters than with finding any knee-jerk means of criticizing the current administration.

Buchanan, meanwhile, was right. And so he is now. And so is President Obama.

pbh