Reactions to Events Unfolding in Iran

To me, one of the fascinating undercurrents of the ongoing drama in Iran is how little we've understood what's really going on there - before and during this crisis. Yes, Iran has made it very hard for any news media to keep reporting over the past nine days, but, even so, there are dimensions to this story that we remain quite clueless on.

First, Iran held their presidential election June 12th and the clerics in power decided to disregard the voters and declare incumbent Mahmoud Ahmahdinejad the winner. This incredibly glaring act of apparent corruption was so extreme and visible to the Iranian people that it sparked the enormous outpouring of protest that has gone on ever since. Sadly, to this point, reports have indicated that close to 20 people have died and many more have been injured. Mir Hossein Mousavi, the challenger who appeared to win a majority of Iranian votes, assumed the role of leader of the protesters and called for a new election to be held. Protesters agreed, and, aired their sentiments in the streets with large rallies every day. Then, over this weekend of June 20 & 21, the Iranian authorities cracked down, to a large extent, on any rallies. Significantly less people turned out on Sunday, June 21, and no one knows what lies ahead this week.

As I've followed events quite closely, I've had strong reactions to the following aspects of this story:

1) I think President Obama's position on Iran has been, basically, right most of the time. I refer to Obama's choice, over most of last week, to refrain from making comments that'd appear like the US was "intervening" or "taking sides" on the election process itself or internal matters in Iran. Rather, Obama chose to focus his most recent comments on Iran's government using violence to stop protesters. He called for Iran to halt a "violent and unjust" crackdown on dissent. Obama, typicallly, has been thoughtful, cautious and wise in choosing his words. He has said that if he expressed a more extreme US "stand" on events in Iran, that Iranian elements would likely take advantage of his remarks by using them to stir up anti-US sentiment and intensify complaints of US "meddling" in Iran's affairs. Beyond that, I feel Obama is following a principle he espoused in his Cairo speech when he spoke of the importance of nations showing mututal respect for how they choose to be governed. "No system of government can or should be imposed by one nation on another," Obama said. The President, in Cairo, seeemed ready to take a more "equal" seat at the table of nations rather than continuing a warped outlook of phony US "superiority" on these matters followed by George W. Bush.

2) To me, the US should NOT be getting involved at all with events in Iran. It is NOT the United States' business to weigh in on how Iran conducted its June 12th presidential election or the relationship between the cleric-led government and the voters. Part of our non-interventionist stance should include a position of not trying to superimpose any "old" US government tendencies to espouse support for "freedom-loving" people and that kind of rhetoric left over from the Reagan era. We do NOT know what Iranians want and some politicians should stop assuming that they want exactly what we think they should want -- freedom, democracy, and Apple Pie - and the all-American way. I can't stand they way politicians try use a situation like Iran's for their own cheap political gains. It's like running on the American flag -- but, there's no American flags in Tehran and the people are not asking President Obama to get involved. Nevertheless, some Republicans were criticizing Obama over the weekend, complaining that he was not displaying enough "leadership" or making "strong enough" statements. "The president of the United States is supposed to lead the free world, not follow it, " said Sen. Lindsay Graham, (R - S.C.) on This Week with George Stephanopoulos. "He's been timid and passive more than I would like," Graham said. Sen. John McCain, on another show, also called for Obama to make stronger comments on Iran. Other Republicans joined the chorus. They, unsurprisingly, described the Iranian crisis in black and white terms. There are the "good guys" and "bad guys" and the Americans, being the ultimate good guys, have the right to swoop down and declare the "right" side in any conflict, according to this twisted logic.

3) These Republicans are suggesting, with typical vagueness, that Obama should come out and forcefully support the protesters, but, Obama and the rest of the world does not know where events are heading in Iran. The same clerics - with Ahmadinejad - might still be in power in the next two weeks. Or, there could be protest that sparks much more violence and leads to a stalemate and heightend uncertainty and crisis in Iran. Or, the protesters' movement could just keep growing until they force some kind of new goverment to emerge - or, new arrangements for the government. To me, Obama's position seems more practical and responsible. He has to be prepared to open new diplomatic relations with whichever government in in power and discuss the tough topic of how to restrain Iran's development of its nuclear capacity.

4) A group of Republicans helped lead efforts to get the US House to pass a resolution that condemned any official crackdown by Iranian authorities against protesters. The US Senate passed a similar resolution. My reaction: I think the resolutions, if they had any effect, were counterproductive by appearing inconsistent with the President's signals. Plus, they amount to minor "meddling" in Iran. Lastly, they appear to be more about these politicians, who are preoccupied with propping themselves up - It's a sad example of US politicians showing self-absorption and cowardice at a time they should be trying to add creative ideas to help Iran and other countries deal with Iran's crisis.

5) I return to my first point. This crisis illustrates how little we know AND the extent to which Americans have been fed propaganda by George W. Bush's Administration for eight years. Let's recall that immediately after 9/11, Bush included Iran in the "axis of evil" and repeatedly attempted to "demonize" Iran, constantly attacking Iran's motives in just about every aspect of its conduct, particularly in the US War against Iraq -- a war, of course, in which the US was NOT justified to start - so, - therefore, NOT in a position to repeatedly complain about Iran's sporadic support of anti-Iraqi forces. To Bush, labeling Iran as all-evil fit into his political agenda in that part of the world (even if it didn't fit the agenda of people who lived there) The point here is that in the past week, we've seen a very different Iran - a "gray" Iran, where thousands and thousands of people are angry with the cleric-led, dictatorial government - with Ahmaddinejad's as the face of that autocratic regime.

6) One got a sense that with all the communications technology out there - from cell phones, to Twitter, to blackberries to social networking to instantaneous transmission of videos - that the world has seen a radical change in how massive change and potential revolutions might be carried out in the future. How can any government in the world get away with much before some aspect of it is communicated somehow, someway via this new technology? Yes, there are a few countries - like North Korea - where it'd still be impossible, probably, but, the scenes in Iran during the past nine days are evidence that we - as citizens of the world - are in a new era for the reporting of turmoil erupting in a country.

7) As I tried to figure out all the unreported aspects of Iran (Is Mousavi negotiating with the Guardian Council of clerics or, has he cut off communications? Is Mousavi in danger of being killed the next time he joins any public protest or would the authorities view that as too risky in terms of enraging his supporters even more, and inflaming the whole movement? Is there a split among the clerics - first reported as a possibility today - with the report that members of Rafsanjani's family were taken temporarily into custody?) I kept thinking about how OFF our country's perceptions obviously were on Iran. Then, I began to think about how little we really know about what's going on with the US war in Afghanistan and our efforts to contain Al Qaeda there and in Pakistan. In fact, I have about 50 questions on Pakistan alone: Is the country as fragile as has been reported? Was the Taliban presence not far from the capital posing the huge threats that some said? What about North Korea? They're making wild statements every few days, testing missiles and now making threatening statements against the US.

With less international coverage in newspapers and limited coverage on television news, it seems a time I'll have to find new sources of information, and the truth, around the world.

I can highly recommend Bill Moyers Journal on PBS, which airs at assorted times. Moyers and his guests discuss what's really happening and that's refreshing when you're just trying to find more of the truth - in context - about these countries, which we're heard so many misleading things about for so long.