{"id":11680,"date":"2009-06-15T21:22:37","date_gmt":"2009-06-16T02:22:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=11680"},"modified":"2009-06-15T21:22:37","modified_gmt":"2009-06-16T02:22:37","slug":"yes-mr-president-that%e2%80%99s-a-rock-and-that%e2%80%99s-a-hard-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=11680","title":{"rendered":"Yes Mr. President, That\u2019s a Rock and That\u2019s a Hard Place"},"content":{"rendered":"

Everybody on the right seems very up in arms over the brutal events transpiring in Iran right now. I agree that it is certainly of concern but the Wall Street Journal <\/a>(among many others) has came out and said the President should take action.<\/p>\n

Having shown such courage, the demonstrators deserve Western support, not least from the media that have recently trumpeted the Mousavi candidacy as evidence of Iran’s openness and potential for reform, conciliation and so on. Whatever happens in the days ahead, the world has now seen the tyranny raw. The least we owe the protestors is not to look away.<\/p>\n

That moral obligation goes especially for the Obama Administration. President Obama came to office promising the world’s dictators an open hand in exchange for an unclenched fist. But as with Kim Jong Il’s nuclear advances and the sham trial of two Americans in North Korea, Mr. Khamenei has repudiated the President’s diplomacy of friendly overture. It turns out that the “axis of evil” really is evil — and not, as liberal sages would have it, merely misunderstood.<\/p>\n

The vote should prompt Mr. Obama to rethink his pursuit of a grand nuclear bargain with Iran, though early indications suggest he plans to try anyway. On Saturday, the New York Times quoted one unnamed senior Administration official to the effect that the election uproar would cause Mr. Ahmadinejad to be more receptive to Mr. Obama’s overtures as a sop to disgruntled public opinion. If the Administration really believes this, then Mr. Obama is the second coming of Jimmy Carter and the mullahs will play him for time to get their bomb.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That all sounds good but what specific \u201caction\u201d do you want the President to take?<\/p>\n

I am not defending Obama; in fact, I think his general weakness probably emboldened the Iranian President to choose this course of action.<\/p>\n

I looked everywhere I could think of and I discovered that while everyone is outraged and posting brutal photos and videos, I had trouble finding anyone with a suggested answer. <\/p>\n

Then finally I found the transcript of a Fox News Sunday <\/a>morning talk show where Bill Kristol finally answered my question.<\/p>\n

KRISTOL: He should support the demonstrators. He should say that stealing elections is unacceptable, killing demonstrators in the streets of Tehran is unacceptable. He could work with the Europeans to say, “Let’s bring in international observers to review whether this was a fair election. If it wasn’t, let’s think about having another election.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

By saying \u201cEuropeans\u201d he means the United Nations.<\/p>\n

What if the Iranians say no? As they have for 30 years of ineffective bullshit from the \u201cEuropeans\u201d. <\/p>\n

What if they do exactly what the \u201creformist\u201d Mousavi did in 1988? Namely drag about 30,000 malcontents out to the desert and blow their frigging brains out?<\/p>\n

What then, Bill? Another strongly worded letter from the Security Council?<\/p>\n

This would just make the United States look even weaker in the Arab world.<\/p>\n

Look folks, this was always a choice between bad or worse and honestly bad won. Stop siding with these protesters! They are supporting a guy that makes I\u2019madinnerjacket look mild.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s try this in historical context. Suppose after Hitler invaded Poland he kept going and a major war broke out between Hitler and Stalin? Both maniacal dictators that held no problems with killing millions of their own citizens. Which side would you take?<\/p>\n

Get over it people, Iran is not at a tipping point in terms of freedom and democracy. They are at a flash point of picking one murderous extreme Islamist over another one.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sick of this outrage crap. Let the radicals kill each other and move on.<\/p>\n

Besides, Obama is too busy socializing America to worry about this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Everybody on the right seems very up in arms over the brutal events transpiring in Iran … Yes Mr. President, That\u2019s a Rock and That\u2019s a Hard Place<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11680\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}