Bill Oreilly and Tony Blair Getting the Point

In last night's talking points - a brief segment at the beginning of his show - Bill Oreilly of Fox News criticized Obama's critics who think he should take a harder stance in favor of the protesters, citing Henry Kissenger. Hooray! Perhaps now radical neo-con Republicans will be alienated and seen for the political opportunists that they are.

Meanwhile, Tony Blair said: "[This is an] extraordinary and exciting moment... It's difficult because you want to stand up for people you sympathize with, but President Obama is right, you've got to be careful because your intervention could be used against the people protesting. ... [We can help] by focusing on it, by letting people know that the world is watching and is, in many senses, in solidarity with the people there." (H/T Huffington Post)

Be quiet now Captain America.

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"Leave Iran to the Iranians"

"Iranian hardliners just can't wait for President Barack Obama to raise high the protesters' green banner so they can turn it red, white, and blue and unleash a bloodbath against 'American agents.' And American hardliners and foreign-policy gurus just keep pushing Obama toward precisely that rhetorical abyss..."

"For many years now, virtually every Iranian who talks to an American says we should stay out of their affairs, that when we try to help them, we hurt them. Do you hear Iranians twittering their thanks to Charles Krauthammer, Paul Wolfowitz, Joe Lieberman, and John McCain? Does that silence mean anything to those Americans urging them on to spill their blood for freedom and democracy? Oh, of course, our moralists and seers of 'a historical turning point' are not so crude as to blatantly call the protesters to freedom's barricades or for Obama to urge a bloodbath for democracy. But they walk right up to that line."

"Charles Krauthammer doesn't hesitate to proclaim his real goal: 'regime change' as the only way to solve future nuclear threats. 'Our fundamental values demand that America stand with demonstrators opposing a regime that is the antithesis of all we believe.' He then asks, 'Where is our president? Afraid of meddling.' And how does this brilliant pen of the right propose to meddle effectively? Like his neoconservative brethren, he offers nothing besides moral condemnation."

Captain America "fails to mention moral calls in the 1950s by John Foster Dulles and the C.I.A. for uprisings in Hungary and its neighbors. The result? Soviet armies crushed the revolutionaries, and we did nothing, as President Eisenhower had made clear was his position beforehand. And [Captain America] doesn't mention H.W. Bush's urging the Shiites of southern Iraq to rebel against Saddam in the wake of the first Gulf War. This resulted in a Shiite rebellion and in Saddam's killing tens of thousands of those poor souls, while Washington did absolutely nothing. And what about Tiananmen? Would going to the moral mattresses have prevented the awful crackdown by the Chinese communist government? Not a chance. And look where we are today-with China as America's biggest holder of U.S. securities. [Captain America] and his fellow neocons are well aware of these histories and historical complexities. So, their disregard of any fair-minded exposition of the issue suggests a hidden motive - [Captain America's] goal of confrontation and regime change." (References to "Captain America" added.)

These quotes are from a new piece from the Council on Foreign Relations. Let me just add that this blatant naming of names and very direct criticism is unusual for CFR. This is a very moderate, centrist organization. For them to so directly and vehemently criticize the neo-conservative position is quite significant. I should also add that CFR is the producer of the excellent academic journal, "Foreign Affairs," which is read very widely in Washington.

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The Wall Street Journal Gets It

Peggy Noonan has put out a brilliant piece for the Wall Street Journal today, and I applaud it. Thanks Peggy, for getting it right and for getting the word out - and in a conservative newspaper no less! Hooray!

I am by no means a liberal or a Democrat. I grew up loyal to the Republicans, but am now a registered Libertarian. That doesn't mean I don't usually side with the Republicans though. Nonetheless, I've been entirely vehement at the ignorant and wreckless politics of certain Republicans lately, especailly Captain America, John McCain, which I've written about here. And yes, by calling him Captain America, I do mean to make him look ridiculous and cartoonish, so that you won't take him seriously.

The best thing for the President to do is stay out of it. I even wrote him a letter telling him as much, and I told him that he needs to get prominent Republicans to speak out about it in conservative forums, because frankly, conservatives won't listen to Obama.

Why is that? Well, because conservatives have already made up their minds about Obama. He's a liberal and probably a coward, they say. He couldn't possibly be right. Thus it's very, very easy for someone like McCain to come along in a smug desire for revenge for losing last year's election and say that Obama is screwing up foreign policy, just like conservatives always knew he would. It reminds me of when Rush Limbaugh said that he wants Obama to fail.

It's ironic how conservatives accuse liberals of being anti-American, because Rush's comments are what's truly anti-American. And I LIKE listening to Rush Limbaugh! McCain's actions here are also anti-American. I know he's got access to BETTER information than I do, since he's a Senator. Although, I doubt he spends as much time looking into it and thinking about it as I do. I didn't vote for Obama. I don't think liberal policies work. But I'm happy to be proven wrong. I want the country to succeed. I want Obama to succeed. I don't want him to ruin our country, and in fact, I'm convinced that ruining our country is a lot harder than it looks.

Obama is not just being a coward. I agree with him, and I was a Marine. Choose any Marine at random and call them a coward. You'll find out if you're right. If I were President, I would do just what Obama is doing. He's doing the right thing.

I might have a small disagreement with Noonan's article though. She thinks it was a mistake for Obama to say that Ahmadinejad and Mousavi are basically the same thing from our perspective. First, let's admit that yes, Obama's statement is incorrect. Noonan assumes that Obama doesn't know that. Perhaps that's a fair assumption, but I think it's incorrect. I think Obama knows that what he said did not reflect the truth of the matter. He knows, because he can employ common sense, that millions of Iranians think the difference between the two candidates is worth dying for. Only a fool could overlook that.

If it is true that the two candidates look the same from our perspective, we need to change our perspective. Anyone in our government will tell you that we know very, very precious little about Iran. I was very pleasantly surprised to see this ad for the opposition. I had no idea just how radical the opposition was. Perhaps a change in perspective is a good idea.

Nonetheless, let's assume for a moment that Obama knew that the comment did not reflect reality. Is there still some reason why he might have said it? Sure! Lots of them! For one, he might have been pushing Mousavi to parse his movement in a way Westerners can understand. For another, he might have been trying to be absolutely crystal clear to everyone in Iran that he was NOT taking sides, because in fact, he doesn't see a difference between the two. Perhaps that made the people in Iran kind of resent Obama's ignorance a little bit, but I doubt anyone in Iran was shocked or really cared all that much. They know we're ignorant about them. And in fact, Mousavi's statement describing how irritated he was about that only gives the fact more publicity that the US President isn't taking sides. (And I'm not the only one who thinks it was a good move.)

That's a very good thing, because if Ahmadinejad can paint the opposition movement as an American puppet movement, then the movement will lose a lot of momentum. Almost everyone in Iran is distrustful of foreign influence in their country, particularly Western influence, and that distrust goes all the way back to the Persians and the Greeks. People outside the US have slightly longer memories than we do. They still talk about injustices done centuries ago. When I was in Kosovo, I remember people talking about land disputes in terms of what happened 700 years before. In the Middle East, some still talk about the Crusades as if those injustices still need to be answered for. This is unthinkable for Americans who have only a 200 year history. White people still can't understand how blacks can still be upset about slavery in the US, when it was abolished 150 years ago. What does that have to do with me? we wonder. Well, some people have longer memories, and they have VERY long memories in the Middle East that stretches back for centuries, even millennia.

So the point is, the Iranians are distrustful of foreign influence, but particularly the US. So if Obama picks a side and supports it openly and publicly, that side will immediately lose at least some Iranian support. So it is actually in the best interests of the opposition movement that he remain silent.

But perhaps you ask why he doesn't then publicly side with the Iranian government, to REALLY ensure their doom. Of course he can't do that, because the American people wouldn't understand that he's lying. So the only thing he can do is take no side. And for this, the Republicans and others call him a coward and say that he's not standing up for the protesters. But the fact is, there's nothing he can do to help the protesters. All he can do is try to refrain from hindering their efforts.

What would McCain have done if he was President? Would he have stormed into Iran, in an attempt to oust the government? Doesn't he understand that if Obama did that, the new government would have NO legitimacy in the eyes of the Iranian people? How is that different from the current government? If we're TRULY Americans, if we TRULY believe in government by the people and for the people, then we'll let the Iranian PEOPLE form their OWN government, without our help, without our interference, without our meddling.

Bravo, President Obama, bravo. You're doing the right thing. Please keep resisting the temptation to be Captain America.

What Should Captain America Do About Iran? Nothing.

Nothing.

John McCain completely disagrees. Here is an example of a politician saying something stupid for the sake of political gain. He should know better. He's certainly in a position to be better informed than that.

Obama's position is right on the money. Stay out of it. Let's not "meddle" in Iranian affairs. His reasoning is absolutely sound. As soon as the US stands up against Ahmadinejad, then he can just turn around and call Mousavi a US puppet, and it's conceivable that some Iranians will believe it, and the movement will fizzle. Perhaps that's overstating things a bit, but we shouldn't miss the point. Let's not give the regime any way to claim that the opposition is the result of foreign powers meddling in Iranian politics. Everyone in Iran is distrustful of foreign influence. They have been for a very long time.

And anyway, just what does McCain think we can acheive by our meddling? Is the collapse of the Iranian government not happening fast enough to satisfy him?

Let's say that it's somehow possible to convince the Iranian government to "play nice" and stop killing protesters. What then? I hate to sound like a cold, bloodthirsty, inhuman monster, but the fact is, the doom of the Iranian state is spelled out in the blood of these protesters, who history will undoubtedly honor as martyrs. This is what happens in revolutions. There's violence; people die. I don't like it anymore than anyone else, but it's a necessary evil.

The fact is, Obama has denounced the violence. Iran is already under a number of sanctions from the UN. What more can be done?

"People are being killed and beaten in the streets of Tehran and all over Iran, and we should stand up for them," he told FOX News. "The way we stood up for the Polish workers in Gdansk, the way we stood up for the people of then Czechoslovakia in the Prague Spring and we have stood up for freedom in every part of the world. We're not doing that."

Precisely how should we stand up for these people, and how will that do them any good? If we take their side, so to speak, that will undermine their legitimacy in Iran. Why is this such a hard concept to understand? Not everyone looks at the US as some kind of world savior. Captain America is just a comic book.

When asked to respond to Obama's argument that perceived U.S. meddling could cast protestors as puppets of the United States, McCain said, "You know, I heard that argument during the Cold War that if we advocated for the oppressed under the then Soviet Union, that would somehow help the oppressors. It doesn't. It doesn't."

What a brilliant and well thought out response! "It doesn't." Brilliant! Why didn't I think of that? Why didn't anyone on the President's staff think of that? The fact is, McCain doesn't HAVE a coherent response to such a well reasoned argument, because he knows he's wrong. He is irresponsibly standing against the President, exploiting the ignorant American public, and all for the sake of political gain. John McCain is no Captain America.