Sunday, December 27, 2009

And Obama Did Nothing to Support the Iranian People Against Their Dictator

From Time Magazine:

We'll never know the man who stood in front of those tanks in Tiananmen Square, but we do know Neda Agha-Soltan: we've looked into her eyes. For one gut-wrenching moment, as she lay dying from the bullet in her heart on that Tehran side street last June, Neda stared directly into the cell phone that was about to immortalize her. Within hours, millions of people around the world had been beseeched by those fading eyes, making an intimate connection with the 27-year-old music student and the cause for which she was killed by the thugs of an embattled regime. Before Neda's murder, the street protests against Iran's stolen election had been a revolution without a face, doomed to be crushed by brute authority and eventually forgotten. But Neda's dying gaze drew the eyes of the world. We can neither look away nor forget.

— Bobby Ghosh

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1946375_1946333,00.html#ixzz0axEolIOB

1 comment:

Rudolf van der Berg said...

What should Obama have done in your opinion? And what in your opinion would have been better if Mousavi came into power?

To answer these two questions :
1. Obama (or any other president of either side of the isle) can't really do anything. The USA has already almost full sanctions in place against Iran. More sanctions are hardly possible. The only thing the USA could do would be to threaten other countries dealing with Iran. The current effects of the US economic boycott are minimal on the political side. Meddling in Iranian affairs through the CIA and other organizations hasn't proved to be too effective in recent years, so that is out of the question too.
All in all anyone in the USA can huff and puff all they want... the current rulers in Iran don't care. They have no dealings with the USA and they don't want any either. Not dealing with Satan is pretty good moral stance actually

2. Is Mousavi that much better? Probably a bit, but how much is the question. He might be better than the current guy for the local people, but he still needs to fit in the system. That system is the Islamic Republic. He has been part of that system for years and served as its prime minister. So you might see some improvements, but don't think that he will all of the sudden adopt all western values. Most likely he will remain in conflict with most of the world.

Obama and his advisors probably know this too and thought it best to know their limitations.