Obama handles Iran with 'kid gloves' as opposition movement gains momentum

As the street-level uprising in Iran continues to gain strength, the Obama administration conducts “kid glove diplomacy” with cautious optimism, strategically allowing the grassroots opposition movement to self-perpetuate amidst harsh government crackdowns.

Republican policy-makers step up pressure on Obama’s tentative efforts in dealing with Iran, hoping the president will support immediate sanctions against the regime, if not military strikes on Uranium-enrichment facilities. Stoking the fires of fear-mongering, those against a nuclear-powered Iran hope an international embargo might persuade Iranians to embrace a regime change in lieu of dismantling their nuclear weapons programs. Others feel that Western “intrusion” will enhance the difficulties facing the reformist movement, galvanizing the people behind President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, cornered by the aftermath of a fraudulent re-election bid.

As 2009 came to a close, the people’s refusal to accept Ayatollah Khameini’s handling of Ahmadinejad’s tainted election victory culminated with a bloody massacre on Shiite Islam’s holiest day of Ashura, leaving eight protesters dead. Among those murdered in the melee was the nephew of Ahmadinejad’s runner-up in the presidential elections, Mir Hossein Mousavi. The public’s memory of this day will remain intact for some time, and the government’s heavy-handedness might provide the spark that ultimately ignites the counter-revolution Iranians cry out for.

When Mousavi’s nephew was killed (run over several times by an SUV, then shot by armed assailants at point-blank range), administration officials managed to contend the death was a stunt concocted by the opposition movement in hopes of smearing a regime with an otherwise spotless humanitarian record.

The city of Qom became the scene of protest upheaval following the death of Ayatollah Montazeri in December, now seen as a martyr for the Green movement to rally behind.

Around the same time, Mahdi Karroubi, another opposition candidate that ran against Ahmadinejad, survived a run-in with would-be assassins.  This creates an unlikely alliance, as Karroubi followers stand as one with Mousavi's "greeners" against a tyrranical government.

Repeatedly, from Khameini on down, assertions fly that the U.S. is behind the latest incursions of opposition protest. What the conservative followers of the Ayatollah fail to realize is the truism that all western democracies came to grips with long ago: Religion and government are toxic bedfellows. When a majority of Iranians backed the revolution in ’79, the fusion of constitutionalism with Shi’a Islam seemed like spiritual-based self-governance at its finest, but the illusion would be short-lived.

After three decades, Iranians grow increasingly dissatisfied with the direction their faith-based government has taken them, especially the iron-fisted brutality of the past seven months. Iranians remain shocked as to how far the Ayatollah was willing to go in order to ensure his chosen Ahmadinejad could retain power, despite lacking the populist support that helped elect him in ‘05.

When Iran’s fair and balanced elections turned out to be fraught with blatant improprieties, people took to the streets, willing to die by the hands of trigger-happy “basij” loyal to the Supreme Leader and backed by the Revolutionary Guard.

In Tehran, Iran’s Police Chief announced “the era of tolerance is over. Anyone attending such rallies will be crushed.”

The revolution has been televised, but not by state-run media outlets. Instead, the outside world is shown footage of protesters dying on video streaming live from cellular phones; acts of civil disobedience met with government-issued violence.

Rallies in support of Iran’s president have to be staged in order to give the appearance of solidarity to the western world. Flag-waving citizens need to be shipped into Tehran on school buses as Ahmadinejad falls further out of favor with his constituents, failing to fulfill campaign promises of job creation in the nation’s capital.

The fundamentalist government continues to clamp down on advocates of reform, incarcerating thousands for dissenting perspectives re-branded as blasphemous treason. With the arrest of the sister of Nobel Peace prize-winning Shirin Ebadi, the Ayatollah shows there are no limits to his disdain for the defenders of human rights.

As the reformist struggle continues behind closed doors, in back alleys and on-line, Ahmadinejad has orchestrated the usual public distraction of standoffs over Iran’s nuclear energy program, with the West predictably nibbling at the bait.

Senate Republicans fill the hyper-partisan atmosphere of Washington, alleging that Obama’s foreign policy initiatives of engaging the Iranian Republic amount to weakness on our part.

Senator John McCain (R-AZ), the most influential Republican alive today according to a Harris poll released Thursday, has reduced himself to posting on Twitter how “we must stand up for the Iranian people”. This is in stark contrast to his actual suggestions of attacking Iran, or pushing for sanctions that would attempt to strangle Iran’s population into submission, initiating regime change via starvation and desperation.

McCain began beating his obnoxious drum for strong-arming Iran into obedience in 2006, warning the destabilized Iranian regime represented the “the most serious crisis we have faced - outside of the entire war on terror - since the end of the Cold War." At a South Carolina town-hall meeting that year, Senator McCain joked, even sang about bombing Iran.

In the run-up to the 2008 presidential elections, Vice President Joe Biden slammed McCain for his lack of foreign policy vision. Biden explained the continuation of Bush-era policies toward Iran, which McCain felt inclined to uphold and enhance, had only strengthened Iran’s national resolve. With the threat of sanctions looming constant, negotiations with the international community over its fledgling nuclear weapons program failed to progress.

In June, the Arizona Senator lambasted Obama for not pressuring fair elections in Iran with embargo activity. Now, he tweets his disdain for our failure to support the people.

Echoing his campaign pledges of cold-shoulder diplomacy toward the Ahmadinejad administration had he become President, McCain continues to find flaws with the Obama administration’s open willingness to discuss reasonable options with regards to Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Israel, our most powerful ally in the region, leads the fight against Iran’s plans to one day obtain a nuclear weapon. Hypocritically refusing to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Israel often plays the role of Middle East patrol officer, rattling sabers while being armed to the teeth with nukes.

Iran, on the other hand, did manage to sign the NPT currently in effect, and has yet to actually violate the agreement.

Insistent upon framing Ahmadinejad (notorious for his anti-Zionist remarks), Israel was caught red-handed falsifying documents last month by CIA investigators. These documents supposedly offered “proof” of Iran developing a “neutron initiator”, prompting worldwide false-alarmism accordingly.

Iran, for all its posturing, is quietly approaching an agreeable compromise with the United Nations over its nuclear endeavors. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has attempted to broker a deal where low-enriched Uranium would be parceled out from Iran to France and Russia, in exchange for highly-enriched Uranium rods designed for energy use, but completely unusable in a weapons program.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki modified the proposal, suggesting, “Iran does not have a problem with Turkish soil as the location for an exchange of enriched Uranium for nuclear fuel.” Turkish officials have agreed to this, in theory, toeing the line for a potential solution.

With regards to us getting in the game of bloodshed and liberty in Tehran, President Obama wisely sends his support from the sidelines, with “deep admiration for the courage and the conviction of the Iranian people.”

With ¾ of Iran’s citizens being born after the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Iranians find themselves questioning the very make-up of their post-revolution government, no longer representative of the majority of its citizens and the collective interests of the Iranian Diaspora.

As the Ayatollah’s cleric-dominated government finds itself at odds with modern Iranian culture, a disturbance of democracy struggles to take root. Untimely Sanctions and unjustified bombing campaigns would only serve to embolden nationalist sympathies. Instead, Iranians must be allowed to shape their republic free of foreign blemish and outside antagonism while calm discussions on energy solutions continue to take place.

The best assistance the west can offer in motivating Iran through the painful evolutionary process of democratic self-governance is to just stand back and let it happen.