We may only hope and pray so, because a river of blood is flowing in the streets of Tehran that could water a whole forest. The Anchoress has a good roundup, as usual—check it out, and follow the links. The Iranian regime has literally declared war on the opposition, sending the militia out to beat women to death, murder unarmed protestors with axes, and throw people off bridges. An Iranian woman told CNN,
This was exactly a massacre. You should stop this. You should help the people of Iran who demand freedom. . . .
In the previous days they are killing students with axes, they put the axe through the heart of young men, and it’s so devastating I don’t know how to describe it.
This is horrific, this is genocide, this is a massacre, this is Hitler. And you people should stop it. It’s time to act.
Another Iranian writes,
I am writing to beg for your attention and assistance in any way possible. An innocent, peaceful, historic momentum, unprecedented in recent history, has come alive in our world that is being brutally put down with violence, lies, and dirty politics for power and riches. You, no matter where you are, have been inflicted by the evil nature of this current going round in our globe.
My brothers and sisters, come together in any way you can. Join the arms of our innocent people whose blood is being shed for peace and human rights which you may be blessed with elsewhere. Our hands are stretched out, reaching out for your support from outside. We are confronting a formidable power as ancient and infectious as hatred, tyranny, intolerance, prejudice and racism. We need your help. . . .
We as a nation are pleading desperately to the world that we MUST not recognize this regime legitimate. We need to use all our strength and unity to pressure it to leave the office before our voice is shut down.
In response to such impassioned pleas, our president boldly decided that since the mullahs hadn’t accepted his invitation to the weenie roast, he’d rescind the invitation.
. . . !
Of course, as Mark Steyn notes, Barack Obama does have a timing problem:
he chose as a matter of policy to legitimize the Iranian regime at the very moment they chose to delegitimize themselves—first, by stealing the election to an unprecedented degree and, then, by killing people who objected to them doing so.
That’s awfully bad timing, and one sympathizes, as one would if Nixon had gone to China a week before Tiananmen Square. But the fact is it’s happened and adjusting to that reality makes more sense than banking on being able to re-legitimize Khamenei and Ahmadinejad.
What really strikes me about this whole bloody, evil vortex—the swirling firestorm of the nihilistic will to power clashing with the desire of a people to be free, a mad dream of some Islamic Nietzsche—is that people are being murdered, shot off rooftops, for shouting “God is great!” (“Allahu akbar!”). A regime ostensibly founded on religion—but more accurately, on the religio-tribal identity that is Shi’ism—has had its true power-mad heart exposed; it’s starting to look like its own religion is turning against it, and like the mullahs will sacrifice even Islam for the sake of power. Perhaps that’s just a fanciful thought, but it’s how things look to me.
It’s important to remember, though, that if Springsteen’s right and “freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose,” then Ahmadinejad and the mullahs are still the freest ones in this whole fight. They’re free to do anything, because if they lose this battle, nothing else matters; they and their supporters literally have no other options but victory or death. The leaders of the opposition can always go into exile, but the likes of Ahmadinejad and Khamenei have nowhere else to go. As such, Spengler is right: this is an extremely complex and dangerous situation, and it’s impossible to predict what will happen next. As he points out, the real wildcard in all this is Israel; the Netanyahu government had best be considering their next move verycarefully, because the consequences, for good or ill, could be beyond reckoning.
Still, in all this, Robert Kaplan is right to say that there is great reason for hope—and that this is all happening as a consequence of our intervention in Iraq (which is why, incidentally, his fellow Atlantic contributor Jeffrey Goldberg was wrong to portray that intervention as a mistake; it was, rather, a calculated risk):
It is crucial that we reflect on an original goal of regime change in Iraq. Anyone who supported the war must have known that toppling Saddam Hussein, a Sunni Arab—whether it resulted in stable democracy, benign dictatorship or sheer chaos—would strengthen the Shiite hand in the region. This was not seen as necessarily bad. The Sept. 11 terrorists had emanated from the rebellious sub-states of the sclerotic Sunni dictatorships of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, whose arrogance and aversion to reform had to be allayed by readjusting the regional balance of power in favor of Shiite Iran. It was hoped that Iran would undergo its own upheaval were Iraq to change. Had the occupation of Iraq been carried out in a more competent manner, this scenario might have unfolded faster and more transparently. Nevertheless, it is happening. And not only is Iran in the throes of democratic upheaval, but Egypt and Saudi Arabia have both been quietly reforming apace.
