Monday, June 15, 2009
Bill Kristol with an interesting plea
From, naturally, The Weekly Standard:
There have been very good grounds to criticize President Obama's foreign policy so far. There will be much more to criticize over the next three and a half years.
But he is our president. We could be at an historical inflection point in Iran. The United States may be able to play an important role. The task now is to explain what the Obama administration (and Congress) should be saying and doing, and to urge them to do what they should be doing. Presuming ahead of time that Obama will fail to exercise leadership, and cataloguing this episode pre-emptively as another in a list of Obama failures, would be a mistake. The U.S. has a huge stake in the possible transformation, or at least reformation, of the Iranian regime. If there's some chance of that happening, and some chance of U.S. policy contributing to that outcome, we should hope Obama does the right thing, and urge and pressure him to do so--because then the United States will be doing the right thing, and the United States, and the world, will benefit.
This too is the role of a loyal opposition.
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2 comments:
I agree with Bill, and for our own safety it is in the best interests of this country to propose and push our plan for Iran to Obama.
That said, what is the plan? Realistically speaking, Iran has no need to play nice with us. So you are left with 3 options, none of which are attractive.
1. Continue status quo of trying to isolate Iran, impose sanctions, and basically sit by idly as they develop a nuclear weapon. (Note that if we choose this path, one also has to consider the likely possibility that Israel will act on their own to attack Iran, even in defiance of US.)
2. Full-out invasion of Iran and regime change. Near impossibility given troop commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan today, along with possible need for action in N. Korea, and will of American public. Iran knows this and will play their hand accordingly.
3. Covert operations to support protestors inside Iran and try to obtain internal overthrow of Iranian leadership. Difficult to execute, unclear how long it would take, and unclear who would assume power and what happens in a power vacuum.
So no great options; I'm interested in Kristol's thoughts on what plan he'd propose.
Based on some of the other articles I've seen at the Weekly Standard, at this point all they're looking for is an unequivocal statement that the U.S. government believes the results are illegitimate, and that the current regime does not have the support of the people.
At a minimum, that would give the protestors more leverage (as opposed to how they feel with Obama giving milquetoast replies like "we're looking into it").
The thought being, I suppose, that one is a little more likely to stick his or her neck out when when the 3 U.S. divisions sitting across the border are on your side.