The Iranian regime means business. The Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee was also told it has now enriched 1,800 kg of uranium – enough for one-and-a-half nuclear bombs. Yet despite serious and widespread concern over its nuclear ambitions, Tehran announced last month that it plans to build ten new sites for further uranium enrichment. It was, of course, the re-election of Ahmadinejad – widely regarded as fraudulent – and the regime’s violent crackdown of pro-democracy demonstrators in June that cost it its remaining semblance of legitimacy, not the nuclear issue. This, and President Obama’s public and private overtures to Tehran over the last few months, have overshadowed the pro-democracy movement, but they are not separate from one another. In June, as protests in Iran began to capture the American psyche Obama ruffled feathers by calling on the Huffington Post’s editor, Nico Pitney, to ask a question about Iran. (Pitney had been communicating with Iranian bloggers, but the event seemed to make the Huffington Post Obama’s semi-official news media.) By August the media outlet was calling for the US president to congratulate his Iranian counterpart, “in the interest of fairness to Ahmadinejad and his mass of Iranian supporters,” and, most of all, to aid diplomacy. But diplomacy, in regard to the nuclear issue, depends upon Obama’s response to the pro-democracy movement. Despite his recent acknowledgment that “evil does exist in the world,” if the US president cannot make a stand on such a clear-cut issue of good versus evil, he simply cannot make a stand on any issue of security. A national leader that wants to reach out to a regime even as the latter guns down its own people has nothing serious to say – and Obama’s speeches in response to crises have been nothing if not vague, and, frequently, absurdly lofty. Last week national security adviser Jim Jones said that “the clock is ticking” on Iran, but that the US remains open to negotiations. Yet if the clock is ticking, Tehran clearly believes that it can be kept set to Tehran time. The regime has offered to exchange enriched uranium for nuclear fuel, seemingly satisfying UN demands. Yet, flying in the face of the UN, Tehran has said that it would only hand over uranium in stages, meaning that it could potentially retain enough to make a bomb. On the same day that Netanyahu spoke of Iran’s enrichment of uranium, Obama waspressing Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to play a part in resolving the nuclear crisis. Like Obama, Erdogan sees himself as a peacemaker, and promotes diplomacy – at least with fellow Islamists. When Israel launched its ground offensive against Hamas at the beginning of the year Erdogan announced his support for Hamas, and offered to mediate between the terrorist group and UN Security Council. Yet, if Obama is prepared, if not desperate, to negotiate with a regime that has brushed aside his overtures, the people of Iran are not. Unlike “the leader of the free world” their words are not vague. As Netanyahu also observed on Monday, as he switched from the nuclear issue, “The use of the Internet and Twitter against the Iranian regime is a great thing. In past years, Iran was portrayed as an unpleasant regime, but today there is deep hatred on the part of part of the Iranian nation against the regime. It is trickling out and constitutes a very important resource for the State of Israel.” Over the last week Tehran again attempted to block internet access inside Iran, in order to prevent information about the latest wave of protests from getting out. They have only been partly successful. Videos have been posted on sites such as Anonymous Iran, including one of a large group of high school girls chanting “All political prisoners must be free; death to dictator; death to this regime who kills its own people.” However, with the internet limited, the pro-democracy movement has gone low tech, writing messages of defianceon banknotes, or embellishing them with images of Neda Soltan, or unflattering caricatures of Ahmadinejad. The Central bank of Iran made an attempt to take them out of circulation, but was unable to, due to the sheer number that have been altered. Iran’s Prosecutor general also turned up the heat last week, threatening protestors and their families. The Revolutionary Guard and Basij were also deployed to contain the unrest, attacking students with batons and pepper spray. Dr. Zahra Rahnavard – wife of opposition leader Mir Hussein Moussavi, and a professor at Tehran University – was reportedly threatened by a group of female Basij. In the sure knowledge that their lives are at risk, the pro-democracy demonstrations continue unabated. But where is Obama? In his Nobel prize acceptance speech last week the president made reference to “the hundreds of thousands who have marched silently through the streets of Iran,” but gave no indication of what actions the US administration might take, if any. “We will bear witness” was as far as he would go. Bearing witness, and mild condemnation, is the traditional response of most European nations. As the Huffington Post said in August, under Obama, “Sadly, the US has lagged behind” other nations who had already shown their “approval” of Ahmadinejad’s return to power. Those in Europe – who see their governments conceding to the demands of radical Islam on an almost daily basis – know how truly sad that is. As do those Iranian youth who are risking imprisonment, torture, and their lives, for liberty. As Obama scratches around for a diplomatic solution – which will be brushed aside again – a few thousand youths spread across Iran pose the major, most immediate, and most long-term threat to one of the world’s worst dictatorships, and the only one that seriously unnerves it. And with good reason. As Mousavi said to the regime, “You fight people on the streets, but you are constantly losing your dignity in people’s minds. Even if you silence all the universities, what are you going to do with the society?”Iran: Twitter Versus the Bomb
Tuesday, 15 December 2009
From the desk of A. Millar on Mon, 2009-12-14 11:46
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