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As someone that's somewhat connected to this issue Obama is handling things as they should be handled.
Yup.
There seems to be a US crowd who thinks foreign policy is a two-option game: Bomb or appease. It's a little bit more complicated than that.
For one thing, there's a genuinely good chance that Ahmadinejad actually won the bloody election. The Iranian city dwellers may be ready for reform, but the rural semi-literates are likely to vote for whoever their preacher tells them to.
The "revolt, you guys" plot device was tried in the aftermath of Gulf War I when Bush the Elder suggested the Iraqis rise up. The Kurds and Shiites did. They were slaughtered. I hope a few hundred thousand ghosts visit Krauthammer's bedroom tonight.
We're back in the reality-based world that the neo-cons so hated.
Reality is that Ahmadinejad is highly likely to come out on top of this. Reality is that if we start bombing (mostly Shiite) Iran, the delicate truce we have with Shiites in Iraq will blow up right in our faces.
There is nothing wrong with showing some support . . . but as a nation, I think all our leaders need to be very circumspect about any statements made in re: to Iran. That is not our fight over there . . . and if we Americans have learned ANYTHING from Iraq . . . it should be that Democracy needs to be a grassroots movement - it is not something that another country can give someone else's citizens.
Iran is ruled w/ an iron fist under a theocratic leader, who is not only the country's supreme leader, but also their spiritual leader. It is up to the citizens of that country to figure out how they wish to live in such a regime. Their religious beliefs are all tied up w/ their political regime, so no way there is some simple solution to their situation.
They have to figure it out for themselves and the worst thing Obama - or any other leader in this country - could do would be to saber rattle here in the USA right now.
I notice that Europe has kept pretty quiet, as well.
I also noticed that at the end of Khomeni's big announcement the other day, hundreds of thousands of people shouted death to America, death to UK and death to Israel . . . so there may be vast numbers of people who are dissatisfied w/ the regime they are living under right now . . . but I don't think there are vast numbers of citizens who respect and/or admire us here in the good ole U. S. of A - and want us interferring in their country's destiny.
Ah, boys and girls do you have any clue who Mir Hossein Mousavi is?
Do you think that Mousavi is some sort of Persian Mikhail Gorbachev?
Just to bring you folks up to speed, Hossein Mousavi is the former Prime Minister of Iran, and was one of four candidates approved by the Council of Guardians! Mousavi (400 others were denied approval to appear on the ballot). As Prime Minister, Mousavi initiated Iran's nuclear program and during this campaign defending that very same program!
Yes, he's better by hairs that Ahmadinejad but only by hairs.
This isn't a protest for regime change, it is a protest for change in the administration.
While in the end this may lead to a drastic change in Iran, I wouldn't bet the rent money on that prospect. The protest aren't demanding an end to the rule of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, it is not demanding the abolishment of the Guardian Council.
This is not East Germany or any of the former eastern block countries, read a little bit, learn a bunch more, and you mind sound like you have a clue about what you are talking about.
There is nothing wrong with showing some support . . . but as a nation, I think all our leaders need to be very circumspect about any statements made in re: to Iran. That is not our fight over there . . . and if we Americans have learned ANYTHING from Iraq . . . it should be that Democracy needs to be a grassroots movement - it is not something that another country can give someone else's citizens.
Iran is ruled w/ an iron fist under a theocratic leader, who is not only the country's supreme leader, but also their spiritual leader. It is up to the citizens of that country to figure out how they wish to live in such a regime. Their religious beliefs are all tied up w/ their political regime, so no way there is some simple solution to their situation.
They have to figure it out for themselves and the worst thing Obama - or any other leader in this country - could do would be to saber rattle here in the USA right now.
I notice that Europe has kept pretty quiet, as well.
I also noticed that at the end of Khomeni's big announcement the other day, hundreds of thousands of people shouted death to America, death to UK and death to Israel . . . so there may be vast numbers of people who are dissatisfied w/ the regime they are living under right now . . . but I don't think there are vast numbers of citizens who respect and/or admire us here in the good ole U. S. of A - and want us interferring in their country's destiny.
More than 1.5 million protesters took to the streets of Tehran on Monday, marking the largest anti-regime demonstration Iran has seen since the final days of the shah in early 1979.
Now, �people are waiting for international support,� Mohseni wrote.
That support wasn�t coming � at least not from President Barack Obama's administration in Washington.
"It is up to Iranians to make decisions about who Iran's leaders will be. We respect Iranian sovereignty and want to avoid the United States being the issue inside of Iran," Obama said during the weekend.
Conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer said, �Our only hope of changing the nuclear issue with Iran is not in the negotiations. It would be in the change of regime
Even as Ayatollah Khamenei blasted the United States for fomenting unrest in a defiant Friday prayer address in Tehran, President Obama has kept silent, focusing instead on domestic policy.
Obama spent more time with TV personality Stephen Colbert, taping a segment for a comedy show, than he did addressing the turmoil in Iran this week.
Newsmax has learned that the Obama administration also has zeroed out funding for pro-democracy programs inside Iran from the State Department budget for fiscal 2010, just as protests in Iran are ramping up.
The protest movement doesn't even know what it wants. All it knows right now is that they're not represented under the present administration.
How would you really know? Because that's what Obama told you you must believe?
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there is not much of a diffference between Ahmadinejacket and Mousavi. its oranges vs oranges.... Mousavi is not that great of a leader...
