Bill Crystal
says that on
September 2, 1939, in the wake of Hitler’s invasion of Poland, the
British House of Commons met to rush through a military service bill. But the House was stunned when Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain said
he wasn’t ready to ask for a declaration of war, that he was still
working on a time limit for Hitler to respond to demands that the German
army withdraw from Poland. As the Labour Party’s Arthur Greenwood rose
for the Opposition, the anti-appeasement Conservative Leo Amery
dramatically called out from the Tory backbenches: "Speak for England."
This isn’t September 1939. But the developments in Tehran are a
potentially big moment, signaling the possible transformation or at
least reformation of the Iranian regime. American principles and
American interests argue for support of the Iranian people in this
crisis.
And where is Obama? Silent.
Some
argue that the brave Iranians demonstrating for freedom and democracy
would be better off if Obama somehow stayed out of the
fight. Really? But Barack Obama's statement wouldn’t be
crafted by those dreaded neocons who vulgarly thought all people would
like a chance to govern themselves and deserved some modicum of U.S.
support in that endeavor. It would be written by subtle liberal
internationalists, who would get the pitch and tone just right. And the
statement wouldn’t be delivered by the notorious George Bush (who did,
however, weigh in usefully in somewhat similar situations in Ukraine and
Lebanon). It would be delivered by the popular and credible
speaker-to-the-Muslim-world, Barack Obama. Does anyone really think that
a strong Obama statement of solidarity with the Iranian people, and a
strong rebuke to those who steal elections and shoot demonstrators,
wouldn’t help the dissidents in Iran?
I don’t believe it. I
don’t believe Barack Obama believes it. As he put it in The Audacity of
Hope: "We can inspire and invite other people to assert their
freedoms;...we can speak out on behalf of local leaders whose rights are
violated; and we can apply economic and diplomatic pressure to those who
repeatedly violate the rights of their own people."
This makes Obama’s
silence over the weekend and so far today about Iran all the more
puzzling. So if I may be presumptuous, I say to Obama: Speak out. Speak
out multilaterally and carefully and sensitively. Speak out kindly and
gently. But speak out. Speak for liberty. Speak for America.
Obama: Our First Islamist Leader
Richard
Baehr says one might think that Barack Obama's obsession with Jewish
settlements in the West Bank would wane a bit, given the events in Iran. But to think this would be wrong.
Obama has applauded the
vigorous election debate in Iran (the one between protestors and those
who arrest and shoot them?), and ridiculed the cause of the protestors
by arguing that Ahmadinejad and Mousavi are really not too far apart in
their views. If that is the case, the Administration is in a sense
arguing that the protestors need not be on the street, since if the
choice were tweedledee and tweedledum, who cares whom the ruling mullahs
select as the winner?
While many European leaders have been
using very tough language to criticize the Iranian regime for its
handling of the election and its aftermath,and standing with the
demonstrators, Barack Obama alone seems to be siding with the regime. Clearly, Obama does not see regime change in Iran as a positive
development, and seems fearful of offending the mullahs and Ahmadinejad.
This go-soft-with-killers approach is causing unusual verbal
gymnastics by Obama acolytes in the left wing press (e.g. the Nation,
the Guardian) who are desperate to find a way to spin the story so that
Obama's reticence in challenging the crackdown and the election theft is
in fact seen as a calculated and nuanced approach to the Iranian
situation.
Israel, on the other hand, seems to be a different
story, and the Administration seems to think it important to go public
with criticism of Israel virtually every day. Three separate news
stories in the last two days should make clear to all but the willfully
blind that Obama still has Israel in its sights.
George
Mitchell, perhaps the most overrated diplomat of our time, uttered a
stunningly stupid response when asked to define natural growth of
settlements. Mitchell explained that he thought it meant -- population
growth, or put another way, new babies. In fact, the harshest critics of
Israeli settlements have defined it a bit more generously -- no new
building in the settlements. For Mitchell, a family squeezing a new baby
into an existing house is a problem, even if they do not add on a new
room.
Can you think of any other place in the world, where
American policy can now be described as "thou shalt not have any new
babies"?
Hizb ut-Tahrir America Enters Public Stage -- click
here (01:09)
ABC Employees Donated Heavily To Obama
As indignation turned to
outrage Thursday among critics of an ABC News prime-time special on
President Obama's health care policy, The Washington Times has learned
that ABC employees gave 80 times as much money to Mr. Obama's 2008
campaign for president than to his rival's.
According to an
analysis of campaign donations by the Center for Responsive Politics,
conducted at The Times' request, ABC employees in several divisions
donated $124,421 to the Obama campaign, compared with $1,550 to the
presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain.
The 60-minute ABC
program, to air live from the White House on Wednesday, is sparking
hardball politics in other ways. Grass-roots boycotts, Republican outcry
and a study citing media bias are all part of the mix.
A study
released Thursday by the Business & Media Institute (BMI) found that
since Inauguration Day, ABC has aired news stories with positive reviews
of Mr. Obama's health care policy 55 times, compared with 18 times when
the network highlighted negative reviews.
Citing Census Bureau
figures, the BMI analyses also accused ABC of "exaggerating the breadth
of the uninsured problem," saying the network's claim that up to 50
million Americans are uninsured is false.
