Deferring to the Opposition Leaders

Interview on Fox News with Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He knows what he's talking about. More importantly, he understands whose opinion counts the most: the opposition leaders themselves.

Many wise people have said that knowing what you don't know is the beginning of wisdom. Isn't it time that we all admit that we just really don't understand the Arab world all that well, particularly Iran? And if that's true, shouldn't we let the opposition leaders set the pace on how the US responds to this?

Begin transcript quote:

WALLACE: Mr. Sadjadpour, several questions. First of all...what about this argument that if the president speaks out, it somehow empowers and gives more ammunition to the Iranian regime to say that these protesters are just puppets of the United States?

SADJADPOUR: Chris, that is a big concern I have as well, and that's why I think the president's rhetoric so far has been well calibrated.

And the historical analogy which concerns me, Chris, is Iraq in 1991 when George Bush senior encouraged Iraqis to rise up. Saddam slaughtered them, and then the rest of the world didn't criticize Saddam for the slaughter but they criticized George Bush for encouraging Iraqis to speak out.

So I think this regime is looking for the United States to step into this trap so they have the license to slaughter the Iranian people and accuse them, you know, of being American (inaudible). [Comment: the inaudible word is probably "agents" or something similar.]

WALLACE: But they're already saying this. In fact, you had President Ahmadinejad today say to the U.S. and Britain, "Stop interfering." So whether we do it or not, they're going to accuse us of doing it.

SADJADPOUR: Chris, I really defer to the leaders of these opposition movements themselves in Iran, the opposition leaders in Iran, and I have not heard from any of them who say that the United States should become directly involved.

They've all said that the United States should continue to denounce human rights abuses, and our plight should continue to be broadcast throughout the world, but none of them have asked the United States to play a more active, defiant role in domestic internal Iranian policy.

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