A few days ago Tehran expelled Britain’s diplomats and arrested some of the British embassy’s local staff. The semiofficial Fars news agency suggested that the latter had played a “significant role” in recent protests, inferring that Britain herself was formenting unrest inside Iran. Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Miliband has responded, however, saying that the suggestion was “wholly without foundation.” And the Czech EU presidency has also said that, “The harassment or intimidation of foreign and Iranian staff working at the EU embassies will be met with a strong and collective EU response.”
Speaking last year at ‘The Second Stage: Building Democracy in a Posttotalitarian World’ conference [video] hosted by The Hoover Institute, Richard Perle remarked on the difficulty facing diplomats working in authoritarian regimes. “It is almost always the case,” he said, “that encouraging [human] rights where they do not exist will not improve the relationship [between the diplomat’s nation and the other] - at least not in the short term - but will complicate it and even worsen it, so there is a natural resistance to doing what needs to be done to encourage human rights on the part of the diplomatic establishment.”
Yet, Perle would have the US encourage human rights in other countries, regardless of such difficulties, and perhaps especially in Iran. Tehran, he observed, is “an unpopular regime,” and there is “potential” for real change inside the country. However, Perle also pointed out the lack of contact between the US and the Iranian dissident movement, calling the US’s broadcasting efforts “feeble.”
A year on, the West’s support for Iran’s dissidents has, at times, come close to pathetic. NewsMax.com is even reporting that, “[…] the Obama administration […] has zeroed out funding for pro-democracy programs inside Iran from the State Department budget for fiscal 2010, just as protests in Iran are ramping up.”
President Obama has made his presidency about healing the supposed rift between the US and the so-called “Muslim world.” To his credit, Obama did speak about human rights and even women’s right at Cairo last month. This was an undoubtedly bold move, and one that is to be welcomed. But his outreach has been largely, mistakenly, directed towards the regimes, rather than the people.
Earlier this year, he openly pushed for Turkey’s entrance into the EU, claiming that these had been brought together by “Centuries of shared history, culture and commerce.” Yet most Europeans would undoubtedly disagree that the connections between Turkey and Europe are anywhere near as significant as those that have linked current EU member states.
But, perhaps more importantly, Obama ignored the fact that the Muslim majority country is governed by the Islamist The Justice and Development Party (AKP), and that there is widespread concern in Europe over the possibility of the country joining the EU. Turkish citizens have also protested against their government’s push toward greater Islamification of the state, with its attempt to ban the selling of alcohol in some regions, and its annulling the university headscarf ban.
A few weeks ago Obama sent a letter to Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei, indicating the administration’s willingness to talk with Tehran.
No doubt partly as a consequence of such outreach, his response to the violent crackdown on peaceful protests was bewilderingly weak. Taking questions from the press early on in the crisis, Obama commented, “[…] I want to start off by being very clear that it is up to Iranians to make decisions about who Iran's leaders will be; [and] that we respect Iranian sovereignty […]” After which, comments about being “rightly troubled” by violence against civilians are more or less redundant. Tehran can only have got the message that the US poses no serious threat to the regime, regardless of its actions or genocidal ambitions.
By his own admission, Obama believes that the best way to prevent Iran from going nuclear is through “tough, hard-headed diplomacy - diplomacy with no illusions about Iran and the nature of the differences between our two countries.” Yet if overtures to Tehran have meant all but ignoring violence perpetuated against Iranian citizens, then being friends with the regime must mean acquiescing to a nuclear Iran, turning a deaf ear to threats to wipe Israel off the map, and to more and more accommodation of Islamic fascism.
Reaching out to dictators at the expense of those under their control that want democracy and freedom is a strategy that will not pay dividends, and, over the last few months, it has only put freedom further on the defensive. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s barefaced demand that Obama apologize for supposed meddling in Iran is no doubt an embarrassment to the US administration. But it cannot be a complete surprise, coming, as it does, on the back of Hamas and Hezbollah demanding more accommodation of their positions - on Israel in particular.
The West was shocked by the murder of music student Neda Agha Soltan [video], and by other scenes of violence against unarmed Iranian citizens. And as yet more photographs and footage of police and gangs of Basij thugs attacking peaceful protestors surface in the West, Obama is afforded fewer and fewer options. His outreach to Islamic fascists looks increasingly like a failed policy.
“There is no doubt that any direct dialogue or diplomacy with Iran is going to be affected by the events of the last several weeks,” Obama has said. “The violence perpetrated against [the protestors] is outrageous. We see it and we condemn it.”
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