Greg Djerijian, a real conservative and a real foreign-policy expert, feels his gorge rising at the learned-nothing-forgotten-nothing rhetoric on Iran coming from most of the Right, with honorable exceptions such as Richard Lugar and less honorable exceptions such as Henry Kissinger (whose pro-Shah policies helped get us into this mess).
Is it not something of a total no-brainer to conclude Obama is right to be prancing somewhat delicately here and not interjecting himself, and this country, more full-square into the ongoing tumult? What a gift the Supreme Leader (yes Mr. Krauthammer, that is his title), to the Basij, to other reactionary elements, were Obama to proclaim that Moussavi was America’s candidate, and that we are firmly pitching our tent alongside his (make no mistake, despite attempting to elide this, this is what some of the neo-cons, at least those who purport to give a damn about the Iranian people—unlike the Ahmadi-Nejad cheer-leaders preferring a simple narrative to get to ‘bombs away’ asap—are essentially advocating). How much more quickly and easily would Moussavi and Co. be tarred foreign agents, with a possibly more gruesome crackdown by emboldened reactionaries likely resulting!
What Djerijian doesn’t say is that the Republican leadership in the Congress and Fox News/Weekly Standard/National Review crowd, and most of Red Blogisan, have merely a mild distaste for Ahmadi-nejad, who has after all been useful to them in their attempt to stir up another war. Their true hatred is reserved for Barack Obama. Nothing will change that.
