The Lives of Soccer Players

The Iranian soccer players who wore green armbands in a World Cup qualifying match in solidarity with the protesters have been "retired" from the team. Yglesias makes a very astute connection to the tactics used by the East German government, as displayed in The Lives of Others, one of my favorite films:

One of the things The Lives of Others does very well is illustrate how a dictatorial regime that prefers to stay in power through “soft” methods can use the threat of destroying people’s careers. Instead of being put on trial and executed, becoming a martyr for the cause, you can just be rendered unemployable in the field of your choice in a decision nobody has to publicly defend but everyone understands. You become, then, not an imprisoned hero, but perhaps just an apparently pathetic person—in the movie it’s a theater director who can’t direct—a cautionary tale rather than an inspirational example.

This is not the martyrdom of Neda Agha-Soltan, the peaceful protester shot dead by the regime's thugs, but it is a sacrifice all the same. These players must have known full well there would be consequences, the ending of their careers possibly the mildest scenario imaginable. Whatever the result of this situation, its legacy will be a hundred thousand stories of courage. I hope someone tells them again, someday.

Making Up for Lost Time

Another statement from our President (emphasis mine):

The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching. We mourn each and every innocent life that is lost. We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people. The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights.

As I said in Cairo, suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. The Iranian people will ultimately judge the actions of their own government. If the Iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it must respect the dignity of its own people and govern through consent, not coercion.

Martin Luther King once said - "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." I believe that. The international community believes that. And right now, we are bearing witness to the Iranian peoples’ belief in that truth, and we will continue to bear witness.

Bravo, Sir. Keep 'em coming.

Obama Speaks on Iran

There it is:

What you're seeing in Iran are hundreds of thousands of people who believe their voices were not heard and who are peacefully protesting and - and seeking justice. And the world is watching. And we stand behind those who are seeking justice in a peaceful way. And, you know, already we've seen violence out there. I think I've said this throughout the week. I want to repeat it that we stand with those who would look to peaceful resolution of conflict, and 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.

Was that so hard? Thank you, Mr President. (Notwithstanding the classic "as I've said before" Obamism flagging his change of position).

"We Meddle Because We Exist"

Michael Ledeen on Iran yesterday:

Whatever or whoever Mir Hossein Mousavi was five days ago, he is now the leader of a mass movement that demands the creation of a free Iran that will rejoin the Western world. And yes, the wheel could turn again, this revolution could one day be betrayed, all kinds of surprises no doubt await the Iranian people. Yes, but. But today, there is a dramatic chance of a very good thing happening in Iran, and thus in the Middle East, and therefore in the whole world...

As Obama discovered just today, America will be accused of meddling on behalf of freedom, even if we do nothing. And the accusation will have been true, in the most fundamental sense, even though the State Department raced to deny it. We are the symbol of freedom in the modern world, and those fighting for freedom against tyrants will intuitively invoke our name and our Constitution in their struggle. They are right, for the very existence of America threatens the legitimacy of the tyrants.

We meddle because we exist.

Obama on Iran

I've been waiting for someone to sum up the arguments surrounding President Obama's (lack of a) stance on the post-election protests in Iran. James Taranto has published as good a digest as I could have hoped for. In classic blogographic style, I agree (why else would I have linked him?). I think Obama was right to avoid strident early support of the protest movement which could have undermined the protesters' confidence in the sovereignty of their own motivations. Nothing takes the wind out of authentic outrage faster than the suspicion you're playing into the hands of meddling superpowers. The regime's own propaganda machines are spinning this angle anyway, so it's a valid concern. But Obama's increasingly tepid responses over the past week are beginning to sound not measured and reasonable but absurd against the backdrop of the historic protests. As Taranto puts it:

The trouble with Obama's comments is not that they are insufficiently belligerent in tone but that they are craven in substance. If the president spoke with clarity and firmness, his doing so calmly would be a plus.

Demographics of Resistance

Michael Totten shares what strikes me as an important point about the demographics of Ahmadinejad's supporters:

[The] strange meme in many media reports that Ahmadinejad has a “base” of support in the countryside is not only wrong, it’s backwards. The uprising we’re all watching on YouTube is taking place inside Ahmadinejad’s “strongholds,” such as they are.

Ahmadinejad is a “conservative” in the relative sense of the word, as he resists any and all reform of the 1979 revolution. He is not, however, a conservative in the traditional sense. Khomeinism and radical Islamism are 20th Century totalitarian ideologies. Traditional village people, conservative as they may be, have little use for them.

Michael Ledeen on Iran

If anyone has something to say worth listening to about the situation in Iran, it's Michael Ledeen. "Faster, please" has been his mantra for years. Now it's in sight. Maybe.

On Oaths

I just saw this Tweet on #Iranelection:

Sorry, @normankonrad, but I don't think it works that way. I don't know exactly how their oath reads, but I don't believe Iranian cops and soldiers are sworn to protect the people of Iran. Even in America, soldiers swear fealty to the regime, not to the people, by taking an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States and to obey the orders of the President. Iranian troops are sworn to defend the Islamic Revolution. In our case, soldiers fight with the confidence that the Constitution we defend is on the side of the people. In theirs, let us rather call the army and the police to respect higher oaths than those they have taken. But even if the soldiers and police defect to the demonstrators, they still have to deal with the Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Basij. There is still a long way to go.

The Revolution Will Be Tweeted

While I was enjoying myself this weekend in splendid isolation in the awe-inspiringly beautiful Great Smoky Mountains, apparently the world's been falling apart. At least Iran. I don't know a lot about Iran. But even life-long Iran watchers and analysts admit that the great deal of that county's political decisions -- such as those surrounding this weekend's election result -- are made somewhere within the "black box", those inner councils of the theocracy whose workings are entirely opaque to outside observers.

What is transparent, however, is that something scary -- but also exciting and possibly even hopeful -- has been stirred up in Iran.



Whether it will grow and remake that country remains to be seen. Whatever the result, the world will experience it live and firsthand from thousands of participants. Follow them on Twitter.

Bravo

I don't know which makes me happier, seeing 20 world leaders and diplomats walk out of the room, or hearing the thunderous applause when they did.

Smart Diplomacy

The cultural performances down in Trinidad must really be something. Even after listening to a 50-minute anti-American diatribe by the Sandinista Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega, Hillary Clinton could only comment on how marvelous the cultural performance had been.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ignored two questions about Ortega's speech, instead offering lengthy praise of a cultural performance of dance and song opening the summit.

"I thought the cultural performance was fascinating," Clinton said. Asked again about the Ortega speech, Clinton said: "To have those first class Caribbean entertainers on all on one stage and to see how much was done in such a small amount of space, I was overwhelmed."

I'm sure you were, Madame Secretary, I'm sure you were. At least you're out front in demanding Iran release Roxanna Saberi, you know, like State Departments generally do when their citizens are convicted in foreign kangaroo courts? Oh, right, not so much. Now Ahmadinejad swoops in heroically to promise fair treatment and hint that clemency might be in the cards. John Hinderaker nails what happens next:

Iran takes a hostage; the State Department says Iran will be rewarded if it goes easy on the hostage; Ahmadinejad urges judicial authorities to reconsider. Three predictions: Iran will relieve Ms. Saberi of some or all of her sentence; Iran will be rewarded; American newspapers will praise Obama for his "smart diplomacy."

The mullahs are playing Obama like a violin.

Honeymoon Over Before the Wedding

Dang, folks, that didn't take long.

Bad Bad Bad: Iranian Base at the Gate of Tears

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak claims that "Iran wants to devour the Arab world". I wouldn't likely be quite so dramatic myself, but the Persians have historically considered themselves the rightful hegemon of the greater Middle East. The Egyptians for their part have considered themselves a sort of "first among equals" of the Arab nations, at least since the time of Nasser, so it doesn't seem out of place for Mubarak to be especially sensitive to Iranian moves on his turf. Then the Iranians go and establish a garrison at the region's second-most strategic naval chokepoint (of course, they already have full control of the most strategic of all). I'm not sure Iran wants to devour the Arab world, but she's sure positioning herself to strangle it.

Iranipedia

The Iranian regime is certainly taking their worldwide PR game wherever they can, and now seem to be fighting it out on Wikipedia. Check out Ethnic Minorities of Iran.

The main ethno-linguistic minority groups in Iran are the Azeris, Kurds, Arabs, Baluchis, Turkmen, Armenians, Assyrians, and Georgians. [...] While many of these ethnic groups have their own languages, cultures, and often literature, their languages and cultures are essentially regional variations of Persian and are all native to Iran.

This claim is practically Chinese in its audacity, and there are many similarities between both nations' needs to justify their empires. Of the above list, only Kurdish is linguistically related to Persian, while the Azeris and Turkmen are descendants of relatively recent Turkic invaders from very far away, indeed. So who counts as native? This is the problem with promoting an ethnic nationalism that tries to erase ethnic differences by redefining everyone into the majority.