Long Road to the Promised Land

Barack Obama is in a tough spot: How can he demonstrate solidarity with Iranian protesters without closing the door to a dialog with the mullahs?

It’s a sublime moment, when citizens rise up against their oppressor. The peaceful protest against election fraud in Iran cries out for admiration and sympathy – especially now, as Germany looks back 20 years to its own peaceful revolution. Who wouldn’t want to stand in solidarity with the protesters, as they demonstrate their dignity and desire for self-determination against a regime out of step with the times? They did not resort to blind rage in their protest; they expressed their discontent at the ballot box. That, too, lends moral greatness to their struggle for the future.

But at the same time, the confrontation comes with enormous dangers. The mullah dictatorship will not hesitate to spill blood. It shows the same self-righteousness as the communist regime that opened fire on its own citizens in Berlin in 1953, Budapest in 1956, Prague in 1968 and Danzig in 1970. The Iranian theocrats aren’t yet ready to admit that their promises of salvation have come to nothing, as the communists finally did in 1989. Furthermore, the West has no communication channels it can use to reason with the regime, so it doesn’t resort to sending tanks and riot troops into the streets. Everyone who demands the West should actively support the protesters needs to consider that. Those who awaken false hopes among the protesters will share responsibility for the bloodshed if the movement is brutally smashed.

Europeans are also having a hard time finding the right response. Many think Angela Merkel sounds much too timid – as if she really has no empathy for the protesters. Gordon Brown’s threat of serious consequences is just empty rhetoric. It fills the need for sounding like decisive action, but it isn’t the least bit helpful to the Iranian opposition. Barack Obama’s position is even more difficult for two reasons: He promised to bring a new morality to foreign policy, so his sympathies have to lie with the demands for fair elections, but if he is seen as favoring the demonstrators against the mullahs, that could prove to be a fatal embrace – fatal for the demonstrators who could then be branded as traitors. In his Friday speech, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei again swore resistance against archenemy America.

Obama’s second dilemma is that, in view of his ambitious projects, the uprising comes at a most inopportune time. He criticized his predecessor, George W. Bush, for rejecting direct negotiations with Iran concerning its nuclear ambitions. How can he now express support for the protesters without slamming the door on a future dialogue with the mullahs? Republicans are now claiming the demonstrations are proof that Bush’s hard-line policies were right all along, and are demanding even more severe sanctions against Iran.

Obama took his time formulating a comprehensive response to the events. His weekend explanation was the typical mixture of historic-moral gravity and restraint in the face of reality. Unlike Angela Merkel, he’s not hesitant to show his emotions. At the same time, he doesn’t feel compelled to adopt Gordon Brown’s bellicose attitude. He refers to Martin Luther King and the struggle for civil rights in the United States; that gives the mullahs no excuse to take revenge on those protesters demanding democracy in Iran. Martin Luther King said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Just before his death, he also said he had seen the promised land; those who followed him were the first to experience racial equality. The mills of God grind slowly. How long they will have to grind in Iran is, as yet, unknown.