Careful What You Wish For

Today’s Wall Street Journal editorial urges the Obama Administration to catch up with events in Iran and make it American policy to support and encourage the so-called “Green Movement” (democracy movement) rather than continue to give legitimacy to the Ahmedinejad government.

The Obama Administration has deeply committed itself to a strategy of “engagement” with the Ahmedinejad regime, and has specifically and pointedly rejected the approach of the Bush Administration, which was to seek regime change, in part through encouragement of democratic and dissident elements in Iran. To make such a change of policy, the Administration would either have to (i) develop courage and a moral clarity which is fundamentally inconsistent with its previous appeasement policy (and the cowardice and moral relativism on which it is based) or (ii) conclude, through a political calculation, that the odds of the Green Movement’s success are so great that it is time to get on the bandwagon and try to claim credit for the result.

I leave to you, dear reader, to judge the likelihood of the former. That latter is a practical impossibility because, in the swirling fog of “intelligence” concerning fast moving events (which are inconsistent with previous “intelligence” assessments), it will never be possible to reach the level of confidence necessary for such political calculus, about the inevitability of the fall of the Iranian regime, until it is virtually a fact.

Of course, I can easily imagine the Administration “hedging its bets” by saying something vague about human rights or the importance of democracy, in order to be able to later claim that it was supportive, in the event the Green Movement prevails. But don’t look for the Administration to take any step that would jeopardize (God forbid halt) its “engagement” track.

If the Ahmedinejad government truly feels threatened, it may seek further legitimacy by offering the possibility of concessions in the nuclear talks. Supporting the Green Movement would mean choosing not to be lured by such offers into an unclear, unenforceable nuclear compromise with this Iranian government, but rather choosing this moment to stiffen our negotiating stance; becoming progressively more insistent that the only thing that would be acceptable would be a complete and verifiable end to all nuclear activity, a destruction of all existing nuclear facilities and a complete accounting of all past activities and uranium inventories and international control of all uranium stockpiles. Does that sound like something of which this Administration is capable? Don’t forget, with the widespread criticism of the Administration’s failure at Copenhagen, the Administration will be desperate for any foreign policy success. In this circumstance, it takes courage to refuse to eat the proffered fruit of an unholy bargain with the devil.

If the Administration did decide to “help” the Green Movement, the Movement would enter an even greater zone of peril (if that is possible). This is because such a policy move could never be kept covert, and the downside to the Movement (giving credence to the Iranian Government’s attempt to tar the opposition as traitors and unpatriotic) would outweigh the feeble, halting, on-again off-again, just-enough-rope-to hang-oneself, style of support that comes from policies created by “nuanced” political calculation.

The Iranians should remember the fate of the Iraqi Shiites who rose up, at the urging of the Bush 1 Administration, after the first Gulf War. That Administration “calculated” that the possible resulting break-up of Iraq was too problematic for our interests and concluded that Saddam was fatally weakened by the war anyway, and therefore doomed to fall very soon to a more pliable Sunni Iraqi leader (who could maintain Iraqi unity).

No administration can be expected to develop the focus and single-mindedness of purpose that is necessary for a reasonable chance of success of a foreign policy initiative which is predicated on fundamental principles that that administration does not embrace. This Administration does not cherish the idea that individual political and economic freedom from an intrusive and paternalistic state power is a transcendent good, without regard to whether that power is, for the time being, benevolent or malevolent. Accordingly, I believe that any Obama Administration initiatives in the direction urged by the WSJ will be incompetent flops and, almost certainly, more harmful than helpful to the Green Movement.

In short, anyone who truly cares for the interests of the democratic dissidents in Iran should not urge the Administration to “help” them. They should pray to God that the Obama Administration dithers.