Excitement spills from the font of freedom fighting in Iran. But so do questions.
How different, for example, would a Moussavi regime be, from Ahmadinejad? And, even if it’s much better, would his policies be reformist enough for the people. Would the clerics still be supreme? Would they still control the militias? Would women be given the freedoms they seek? Would the regime be friendly to the West? Would it recognize Israel? Would a second movement, revolution even, be implemented?
Certainly, none of these questions should deter support for the people of Iran. Certainly, Iranians cannot answer these questions right now. What we do know is that freedom is forming in Iran. But we can’t know for sure what a new regime would look like.
That may explain President Obama’s careful approach. At first blush, his cool hand feels disappointing. Isn’t this the moment to step up to the plate, like McCain and many others are saying?
Perhaps Maureen Dowd’s Sunday column provides perspective on this “cool hand”:
…some Americans fear that President Obama is too prone to negotiation, comity and splitting the difference, that he could have been tougher on avaricious banks and vicious Iranian dictators.
While Dowd’s piece takes off, so to speak, on the “fly” incident (president kills fly on camera; comics kill audiences on late night tv), she divulges how half the president’s aides:
…are more caught up in the myth and magic, feeling that Mr. Obama summons the three-point swishes when he needs them; that his popularity is not so fragile; that the president’s unparalleled vision and buzzer-beating will shape fate.
If half of Obama’s aides are 100 percent right, the president may prove to be ahead of many of us on Iran versus behind us.
Allen Shadow 