Less Obama, More Reagan

For me, what to do about Iran has been one of the most vexing questions in American politics over the past few years. I've never been very sanguine about the prospects of convincing thugs, dictators, and strongmen to change their policies by appealing to their reason...which is why I thought candidate Obama's pledges to meet with the world's thugs, dictators, and strongmen without preconditions was silly. These bad guys benefit from a photo-op with the leader of the free world because it bolsters their legitimacy on the international stage and decreases the likelihood of resistance back home. Seeing your tyrannical leader shaking hands with the President of the United States or hearing the president talk about your repressive regime as if it deserves recognition and some level of respect only serves to demoralize citizens who might otherwise join together to topple that regime and set up a new government that prizes a free press and safeguards individual liberties.

After a year of apologies and obsequiousness on the world stage, the US of A doesn't have much of anything to show for it. The attitude of the Chavezes and Ahmadinejads seems to be, unsurprisingly, something along the lines of "meet the new boss, same as the old boss." Why? Because anti-Americanism is here to stay. It predated George W. Bush, and it will endure long past the presidency of Barack Obama. Repressive regimes will continue to use America as a scapegoat in order to deflect the attention of their citizenry away from failures at home to their supposed "enemies" and imperial "oppressors" abroad. It's a tired tactic, and yet for some strange reason, so many on the American Left continue to buy into the narrative of an evil, oppressive, imperial America. That's why they were so enthusiastic about candidate Obama. He shared their view of America and their interpretation of 9/11 (read my other post from earlier today for more on this).

But Obama's hopeandchange hasn't done anything to convince the Iranians to stop their aggressive pursuit of nuclear weapons. It's not at all surprising to those realists among us who understand that nations pursue their own interests...and that when the leaders of nations are bad people, those interests tend to threaten freedom, individual rights, and security across the globe.

We're now reaching a crossroads regarding Iran, and up until recently, I thought we had three basic options. One was to sit back and allow Iran to become a nuclear power. Another was to try economic sanctions...but without Russia and China on board, I'm not convinced that this would be a strong enough approach to get the Iranians to stop their march toward nuclear weapons. And anyway, we've waited too long. At this point, the Iranians are at most a year away from developing a fully usable nuke, and I doubt sanctions will do the trick quickly enough. That left us with the third option: military action. Up until the past week or so, I felt that this was the only real way to prevent Iran from going nuclear. Whether it was going to be Israel or the US that acted, air strikes were going to be the only solution.

But my outlook has changed a bit, and I'm guardedly optimistic that we may not have to resort to military action...IF, that is, President Obama is willing to swallow his seemingly bottomless pride and take a page out of the real Great Communicator's book. Barack Obama needs to first admit that his strategy of diplomatic overtures and painstaking negotiations has failed. He then needs to pick up a history of the Cold War or a biography of Ronald Reagan and study up.

Because what we need now is a president who is brave enough to stand up for the oppressed people of Iran, a president gutsy enough to offer a full-throated defense of the dissidents who are out in the streets clamoring for an end to this awful regime. We need a president who is willing to discard his appeasement-tinged policies toward Iran in favor of a new approach that no longer bestows legitimacy on a regime tainted by the violent repression of its own citizens.

This is a pivotal moment. Prominent Iranian scholars are saying that the regime could fall. If it does fall, and a more liberal, pro-Western (or at least not anti-Western) regime takes its place, we may yet prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon without direct military intervention. In order for this to happen, we need to be on the side of the Iranian opposition movement. Months ago, in the aftermath of their fraudulent election, Iranian protesters jammed the streets and shouted, "Obama, are you with us or against us?" It's a shame that they even had to ask that question of an American president. It's even more of a shame that Barack Obama has yet to answer.