Michael Ledeen
Pajamas Media
January 9, 2010
So we hear from Jay Solomon on the front page of today’s Wall Street Journal. Or at least from his headline. Once you get into the text, it seems much less. It seems that, after seven months of courageous demonstrations from millions of Iranians, at least some of our policy makers have realized that the tyrannical regime headed by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadi Nezhad is widely hated and has lost legitimacy with its subjects. That is all to the good, as is the new tone of statements from President Obama and others in clear support of the dissidents.
But there is as yet no sign of “helping” the opposition. Nor does Solomon provide any reason to think that any such policy is in the works. The most that can be said, based on his report, is that we are considering a Hippocratic policy: do them no harm.
As Solomon describes it:
Senior U.S. officials stressed in interviews this week that President Barack Obama isn’t moving toward seeking a regime change as its policy for Iran. Rather, these officials said, Washington remains committed to a dual-track approach of pursuing dialogue aimed at ending Iran’s nuclear program while applying increasing financial pressure if the talks fail.
To which one’s immediate question is: haven’t the talks failed? It’s been 31 years now. And even Obama’s promise to “act” if, there were no breakthrough by New Year’s Day has been dropped. So it’s business as usual. Appeasement.
The article continues at Pajamas Media.
