Iran and Obama

Well, now we know for sure that the Iranian election was a sham -- the Iranian regime has cut off cell phones, texting and internet service. They have also stopped the BBC and others from broadcasting in Iran by jamming the signals from the satellites. All of this is, of course, in violation of international communications treaties. The results announced by the regime were clearly phony (one candidate got less than 1%, the candidate in second place lost his hometown in a landslide, etc.) The Iranians are rioting in the streets given their outrage over the fake election.

So, how did President Obama look at the election? He proclaimed it a great achievement for Iran. He rejoiced at this exercise of democracy. In other words, he looked like a fool (not hard when you and your advisors are fools). Indeed, Obama probably did more damage with his rapid and stupid congratulations to Iran than his release of the so-called torture pictures could have done. After all, the USA has spent nearly a decade extolling the virtues of democracy in the middle east, and it has fought a war in Iraq, in part to install democracy there. Now the leader of the USA has announced that this sham in Iran is the very democracy that the USA has been pushing. What is the average person in the middle east to take away from this? Not hard to figure out -- democracy is no different from the dictatorships that are the normal governments in the area. The only difference is that in democracy the government goes through the motion of having an election before it announces the results that it wants no matter how the votes were cast.

Maybe someone in the press corps will ask Obama whether he decided to stick his foot in his mouth without prior conditions.

Look, this was not difficult to see coming -- Obama should have known and his advisors certainly should have warned him. Unfortunately, Obama's advisors are more interested in ideology than fact. Left wing anti-Americanism does not serve the interests of the USA or the world well, however. One thing is certain, for all the derision that the press used in discussing George Bush, he would not have made this mistake.