Iran

[prog]

My selfish hope is that the events in Iran bring out positive - if not painless - changes in both that country and this one. In the Iranians, we Americans of all political colors see a sympathetic entity who has not just been wronged but outraged, by any objective standard.

It feels like 9/11 turned inside out. Rather than being challenged to come together to face a common threat, we're being challenged to come together to respond to a sudden and enormous wrongdoing in a place across the globe that, the day before, you and I might have had completely different opinions about.

I really hope we as a nation and a people can do a better job at meeting the challenge this time.

Comments

[chocorisu.livejournal.com]

My concern is that traditionally the way we deal with corrupt regimes is to make the lives of the populace utterly miserable through sanctions and military action while the people actually causing the problems gad about in shiny yachts and gold-encrusted palaces.

I hope it is not too much to expect politicians to act honorably.

[radtea.livejournal.com]

This is not America's problem. The best thing you can do for ordinary Iranians is yawn loudly and affect complete indifference to their domestic problems.

Polling is notoriously difficult in Iran, where 1/3 of the population is so rural as to be practically inaccessible to polling. The election didn't break for the reformers, and that's too bad, but they are a sovereign theocratic democracy, and as such must be left to go their own way and do their own thing. They'll sort themselves out in their own time, and on their own terms.