NEOAVATARA

Have we abandoned these people?

Presidencies can be made by great moments in time…Franklin D. Roosevelt ‘day that will live in infamy’ speech; John F. Kennedy’s inaugural; Ronald Reagan’s “Mr. Gorbachev…Tear down this wall!”.

Mr. Obama had that moment…and was completely, absolutely silent.

That moment came this weekend, when Iranian elections and ‘democracy’ were shown for what they are:   a total, utter fraud.

Instead, the Barack Obama White House stayed virtually silent.  Actually, that isn’t true; it was even worse.  What they did was in some way legitimize Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by stating that despite the rigged election, they would still negotiate with him. The White House said that they would negotiate with whomever was their leader…talk about weakness.

And Hillary Clinton gave a weak statement that the election should be honest.  Thanks for the profound sentiment, Ms. Clinton.  And the State Department press secretary refused to condemn Iranian Security forces that are beating protesters.  Mr. Mousavi has said he is willing to pay any cost…and we are silent.  Here, this is what the State Department is refusing to condemn: the shooting of a man in the head (please, view this picture with discretion); or the shooting of a young girl by Iranian police…reports are that she is likely to die.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inEpnZIYVAQ

How do you think freedom protestors on the streets of Tehran feel about hearing that the U.S. can’t even condemn these actions?

It is interesting, but we have a historical mirror image from someone who is a Barack Obama lover:  Tom Friedman.  Tom Friedman is entertaining at least.  He is not a classic liberal or classic conservative. Sometimes I will be furious at nonsense he spews, and then other times I will be shocked at how much I agree with him.

Sunday was one of those latter times.

Friedman had an Op-Ed in the New York Times that…Gasp!..states how George W. Bush was right.

I am sure many New York Times readers did the same thing I did when I saw it…spit their coffee all over the dining table.

…Second, for real politics to happen you need space. There are a million things to hate about President Bush’s costly and wrenching wars. But the fact is, in ousting Saddam in Iraq in 2003 and mobilizing the U.N. to push Syria out of Lebanon in 2005, he opened space for real democratic politics that had not existed in Iraq or Lebanon for decades. “Bush had a simple idea, that the Arabs could be democratic, and at that particular moment simple ideas were what was needed, even if he was disingenuous,” said Michael Young, the opinion editor of The Beirut Daily Star. “It was bolstered by the presence of a U.S. Army in the center of the Middle East. It created a sense that change was possible, that things did not always have to be as they were.”

Yup.  Tom Friedman.  Wonders will never cease.

This actually defines what Bush defenders say to historians…you need time and space to see if Bush will truly be viewed a success or failure.  Sure, some of his decisions were and always will be questionable.  But some produced seismic shifts, such as in the Middle East, and only decades of time will give the final answer.  Bush, despite your misgivings, always spoke out for freedom worldwide.  In Lebanon, we only see the beginnings of these changes.  By no means has the final chapter been written.

But the first chapter…well, score one for President Bush.

And at the same time, count this as a major missed moment of greatness for Barack Obama.  I lauded Obama’s Cairo speech, though I disagreed with some of the particulars.  I though the main value was symbolic:  showing a U.S. President’s interest in the Islamic world.

But what a missed opportunity this weekend!!!  At a time protesters were fighting for their vote to be counted, for their pleadings of freedom to be answered…Mr. Obama was silent.  Could you imagine the amazing speech the President could have given, stating that the votes in Iran should be recounted if the Islamic Republic wanted to be honestly a democracy?  Could you imagine the amount of  moral support that would have given to those protesters, being injured and even killed, to hear the American President side with them?  Instead, they have little or no faith in the American President; a number of students in Iran have said that if Mr. Obama accepts the election, that they are doomed.

What may be scarier is that I feel that the Obama White House was caught off guard, and had no clue how to react.  Heck, even now they are acting like scared rabbits.  What do you do when you are in fear?  You fire people.  And Dennis Ross, Mr. Obama’s lead Iran negotiator, apparently is the first to go.  Ross was one of the few experienced diplomats on the Middle East…who they pick now for that vital post is up in the air, exactly at the time it shouldn’t be.

So, uncertain of what the President should have said?  How about, at the very least, a statement like this:

“We have great respect for the people, and we’ve got problems with the government. We have problems with the government because the government has been threatening, has made decisions that –and statements that — really have isolated the people of Iran.

“My message to the young in Iran is that someday your society will be free. And it will be a blessed time for you. My message to the women of Iran is that the women of America share your deep desire for children to grow up in a hopeful society and to live in peace.”

That message was from George W. Bush on March 20, 2008.  So far, Barack Obama’s only comment came on Friday…

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ45v4POISE

Yeah, right.  Instead, after bumbling the election day, after the election Obama stayed silent and missed a grand opportunity.  At the very least, we could have made overtures to Mr. Mousavi and other reformers. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton could have at least tried to contact the reform leaders, just to ask if they were o.k.  Isn’t that the minimal thing we could have done?

We keep saying that we, as a nation, are supportive of the Iranian people.  Really?  Jimmy Carter basically said ‘ho-hum’ to hearing Ahmadinejad stole the election, showing no emotiona whatsoever.  This weekend, was Barack Obama supportive of the Iranian people?  I don’t think so.  It showed Mr. Obama as someone that is more worried about political expediency than real honest moral truths.  And an eloquent speaker such as Obama could have supported the protesters without totally alienating the current regime, which would not have damaged relations if the protesters ultimately fail in their bid.  Obama should not outwardly support Mousavi…that would be a mistake.  But he should support the will of the Iranian people in the pursuit of freedom.

Bush, for all his failures, never missed these opportunities.  The major spirit of his 2nd inaugural was freedom:  freedom at home and abroad.  Now, many liberals thought it to be naive.  But that naivete, in Tom Friedman’s mind no less, has been successful to some degree in changing the tenor and dialogue in the Middle East.  And at the very least, it has helped bring democratic ideals to battle torn Lebanon.

No, this was a historic episode of silence.  So when in the future, a foreigner asks if people across the globe are struggling for freedom, what will the American President do?  We have an answer:  Remain silent.

UPDATE:  Obama still won’t support democracy in Iran.  Again, he doesn’t need to endorse Mousavi… he can support the democracy movement without supporting any specific candidate.  He talked about sovereignty…and then they said people deserve free speech.  I am sorry, sovereignty means they can limit free speech as they wish.  He went to Egypt a week ago, and spoke there; that is a country that does not allow free speech either.  It is thinking like this that allowed the communists behind the iron curtain to get away with murder for decades…until Ronald Reagan confronting them.  This is what you get with relativistic moralism.  Having the government murder people, under any situation, is unacceptable.  But he could not even get himself to say that.

3 days later, Obama is still looking for a proper statement.  This shows how an inexperienced politician can make a mess of things.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-GsNH6Zc6U

Please note:  Some great pics at http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/06/irans_disputed_election.html