Should Obama Verbally Support the Iranian Protesters?

I know there's the fear that any US support (a.k.a. "meddling") for the protesters will draw a knee-jerk, anti-American response from the Iranians. We've got a lot of strained relations going back to the coup of 1953. On the other hand, President Obama is, in many ways, a "clean slate". He is "change", he is a break from our past, and he has a lot of political capital, both in the USA and in the world. This could be his chance for a historic "Ich bin ein Berliner" or "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall" world-changing moment.

National Review Online has numerous posts urging Obama to come out with support for the protesters. Interestingly, Huffington Post and OpenLeft, though not so agressively and forthrightly, also (at least, they seem to me) to support the forces of liberalization. Daily Kos seems mainly to be sleazily using the Iranian people's sometimes deadly struggle for liberty to score political points. The US House of Representatives just voted 405-1 to condemn Teheran's crackdown. John Kerry says we should keep quiet. John McCain says we should speak out, "“if we are steadfast eventually the Iranian people will prevail.”

Now, maybe through back-channels, the US government is in contact with some of Mousavi's supporters, and they are asking for us to keep quiet. Could be. And maybe it will all calm down in the next day or two, though I doubt that.

Here's my opinion: If the demonstrations continue, and if the regime's response grows more oppressive, as signalled by Khamenei's Friday sermon, we must speak out. Maybe it will backfire. But the guiding principal should not be realpolitik, whether it succeeds or fails, but that it is the right thing to do. Whatever one may think of Jimmy Carter's term, his support for human rights was the right thing to do and helped win the cold war. Whatever you may think of Ronald Reagan's and George W Bush's foreign policy, they were right in supporting the spread of freedom and democracy.

I'm not saying invade Iran unilaterally. I'm not suggesting new rounds of sanctions. I'm saying we should express strong support for the principals of freedom. Who can argue with that? A main reason we are in this mess is that we did the wrong thing back in 1953. Two wrongs do not make a right. Today, we have the opportunity to do the right thing and start a new era of friendship with the Iranian people. Obama and Hillary Clinton have praised "soft power". Use it. Obama should go on TV, cue up Battle Hymn of the republic, and read inspirationally from the Declaration of Independence. O.K., some of that may be overboard, but you get the idea. :-)