Obama and Iran

Understanding the political issues of any country in the middle of turmoil and possible revolution is never easy, but Zbigniew Brzezinski, a current national security adviser for President Obama offered some very cogent comments about the ongoing protests in Iran during an appearance on Fareed Zakaria’s GPS on CNN last Sunday.

When Zakaria asked him if he believed it was the beginning of the end of Iran’s governing ideology, Brzezinski agreed it was the beginning of the end, “but the beginning could be prolonged and that’s why we have to be careful in how we handle it and how we understand it.”  (It should be noted that the Iranian revolution of 1979 with the overthrowing of the Shah took more than a year)

Clearly, Obama is cognizant of the political fallout and implications of anything he says and does about the upheaval led by Iranians dissatisfied with the outcome of the recent presidential elections that reportedly had the incumbent, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, winning by a wide margin of 65 percent.

“The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching,” Obama said in a statement. “The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights.”

Keying his remarks to the overarching moral issue, Obama quoted Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  “’The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,’” he said.  “I believe that. The international community believes that. And right now, we are bearing witness to the Iranian peoples' belief in that truth, and we will continue to bear witness.”

Brzezinski believed that Obama “has struck exactly the right note,” in his response to the situation.  “He's offering moral sympathy,” he continued. “He's identifying himself morally and historically with what is happening in Iran but he's not engaging himself politically, he's not interfering, because that would turn out badly and it could be exploited by the neo-cons in Iran to crush the revolution, to wipe it out. I don't know if the revolution will prevail, it may take time, but the longer it lasts the better are its chances. But we don't want it to escalate into a total showdown because if there's a total showdown now, the chances are that the worst elements, the Iranian neo-cons, will prevail.”

Without stepping into the fray, Obama was nonetheless concerned about the violence and its ramifications. “If the Iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it must respect the dignity of its own people and govern through consent, not coercion,” he said.

Referring to Obama’s diplomatic overtures and particularly his speech in Cairo, Brzezinski said:  “I think Obama has redefined America’s relationship with Islam and thereby he has weakened the capacity of the ayatollahs to present us as a satanic force.   But we should have no illusion that Iranian nationalism is going to be easy to deal with.”

Brzezinski compared the Iranian uprising to the revolts that shook Eastern Europe in 1989, noting that while there were similarities in the struggle for democracy and the aspect of nationalism, unlike the Eastern Europe nations, “Iran doesn’t have an imperialistic enemy” that it’s trying to defeat.   The Eastern European nations were trying to remove the stranglehold of the Soviet Union.

And should Obama negotiate with Ahmadinejad, if he retains his leadership?  “Yes,” Brzezinski said.  “I would support a negotiating strategy because if the regime is still there we still have a better chance…negotiating with Ahmadinejad.”  Even so, he added, noting that we have negotiated in the past with such leaders as Joseph Stalin of Russia and Mao Tse-tung of China, “it will still be a difficult problem.

“In Iran,” Brzezinski asserted, “we have two different forces at work. You have those who are for more democracy but who are also nationalistic and you have those who are supporting the regime who in many respects are ... very similar to our neo-cons. They are Manichean, they look at the world as divided into Good and Evil and many of them see America as the personification of Evil....”