Why Obama Is Right On Iran

The usual gaggle of right-wing geese have criticized President Obama, honking and squawking at his supposedly tepid response to the events in Iran. Charles Krauthammer, never one to get the main point, avers without citing evidence that the protestors "await just a word that America is on their side" and instead receive only an august presidential "silence" (not true). ("Await just a word" to do what is never made clear.)

It is the case that Obama has not upstaged the protestors by promoting the "freedom agenda" on the international air waves. He plainly stated in a interview with CBS News' Harry Smith that "we believe that the voices of people have to be heard, that that's a universal value that the American people stand for and this administration stands for" and went on to say that

the last thing that I want to do is to have the United States be a foil for those forces inside Iran who would love nothing better than to make this an argument about the United States. That's what they do. That's what we've already seen. We shouldn't be playing into that. There should be no distractions from the fact that the Iranian people are seeking to let their voices be heard.

What's more, the president has a point. In Legacy of Ashes, his epic history of the CIA, Tim Weiner lays out in detail the agency-driven coup that toppled the democratically elected Mohammed Mossadeq in August of 1953. Mossadeq had incurred the wrath of the west by threatening to nationalize Iran's oil production and imposing the radically unacceptable condition requiring that his country receive 50% of the revenue produced by a natural resource that it owned 100% of.

Then-President Dwight Eisenhower approved the coup, and the CIA installed Reza Pahlavi as the Shah of Iran (This happened despite warnings from the CIA station chief in Tehran, who predicted that sponsoring a coup would be an historic mistake. His honesty got him recalled.) The CIA helped the create SAVAK, an internal security service. According to Weiner,

The CIA wanted SAVAK to serve as its eyes and ears against the Soviets. The shah wanted a secret police to enforce his own power. SAVAK, trained and equipped by the CIA, enforced his rule for twenty years. (p. 103)

Most pertinent to current events, what was a closely held secret in the United States was common knowledge to Iraqis: Their emerging democracy was now a monarchic police state courtesy of the United States and the Central Intelligence Agency. The chickens came home to roost during the hostage crisis of 1978-79, during which Americans learned for the first time that many Iranians regarded the United States as "the great Satan."

The theocracy headed by the Ayatollah Khomeini toppled the shah and imposed a fundamentalist Muslim rule on a society that was becoming increasingly diversified. For an outstanding account of life as Iranian secularist, read Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi's excellent graphic novel. (I thought that the film based on the novel was arguably the best picture of 2007.)

Iraq, Iran's secular neighbor to its west led by dictator Saddam Hussein, sought to take advantage of the turmoil caused by the change in regimes. In 1981, Hussein invaded Iraq, touching off an eight-year war that killed millions. Despite the fact that Iraq's population is roughly half of Iran's, Hussein undertook the invasion supported by modern weaponry provided by the United States, a reality not exactly lost on the people of Iran.

Twenty years after the war ended in a futile draw, it's not at all clear that even "just a word" from the President of the United States would be received in Iran without unintended controversy. By affirming American commitment to Iran's sovereignty, by supporting the values of the protestors, and by recognizing that this is a matter for the people of Iran to sort out, the President Obama is doing the right thing...

Harry Smith's complete interview with Obama follows. In addition to Iran, they discuss North Korea, recent remarks by George Bush and Dick Cheney, and the increased regulatory powers of the Federal Reserve:

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