Too soft on Iran?

Conservatives haven’t pulled any punches when it comes to the way President Obama has responded to the popular uprising in Iran. In an editorial in the Weekly Standard, Stephen F. Hayes and William Kristol said the president was making himself “a de facto ally of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.”
Frankly, they couldn’t be more wrong.
As a source with close ties to Iran told me last week, “This isn’t about the election.” The Ayatollah hand-picked both candidates. Mir-Hussein Mousavi wouldn’t represent the will of the people any more than does Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. This about the desire, on the part of the people, for regime change.
And too much American interference would only hurt that cause. If you know history, you understand this nation’s role in Iran during the 20th century. Sure, things were marginally better for Iranians under the Shah. They had some measure of economic and social freedom. But people still didn’t have any political freedom.
The revolution that deposed the Shah in 1979 came under an anti-American banner. The current regime would love to use hard-line comments from an American administration to justify an escalated crack-down on demonstrators, and to harm their credibility by accusing them of being American puppets.
This comment piece by Jeremy D. Mayer gets it right.
Obama used tough language at a news conference this morning, condemning the Iranians’ brutal handling of their own people. But he still didn’t get behind Mir-Hussein Mousavi.
That’s the right strategy.