Iran's New Year

The new year begins with interesting developments in Iran. When the so-called "green revolution" protests began in Iran in 2009, the President of the United States at the time did virtually nothing to support the hundreds of thousands of Iranians who opposed the Islamofascist government run by the Mullahs. The Obama administration remained silent, offering no covert or overt support for the young people who protested. The green revolution died, along with an unknown number of demonstrators who were murdered and imprisoned.

Fast forward to today. Unrest in Iran is growing once again. Donald Trump, the current President of the United States has already tweeted support for the demonstrators and hopefully, will offer significantly more covert and overt assistance. At the very least, he did not remain silent. Trump tweeted:

“Oppressive regimes cannot endure forever, and the day will come when the Iranian people will face a choice. The world is watching!”

“The entire world understands that the good people of Iran want change, and, other than the vast military power of the United States, that Iran’s people are what their leaders fear the most....”

The trained hamsters in the mainstream media have inexplicably covered the story somewhat defensively. The New York Times initially suggested that the protests were strictly about "economic anxiety" even though videos coming out of Iran indicated nothing of the sort. Noah Pollack notes that in what now appears to be just another example of Fake News mixed with Trump Derangement Syndrome, "the NYT's Tehran bureau chief, wrote a long, front-page story claiming that Trump had united the Iranian people behind the regime. [In light of the recent unrest,] Shouldn't he explain to NYT readers how he got it so wrong before filing more stories?"

Steven Miller provides a more accurate description, reporting that:

Protesters are shouting “Death to Khamenei,” “Mullahs get lost,” “No more Islamic Republic,” “Clerics return us our country,” [and notably, "Let go of Palestine."] They are not shouting “We have economic anxiety”. This is not about economic anxiety. This about revolting against a regime who has exhausted its moral good will, and no longer can lean on a sympathetic United States for more pallets of cash.

Meanwhile, CNN, appears to have taken a decidedly pro-Mullah view, initially presenting video of only the pro-government counter-demonstrations staged by the regime.

Miller suggests a reason for this odd reporting:

How will the Obama Presidential Library wing look celebrating a nuclear deal with an oppressive Iranian regime that could possibly be deposed by security forces and the military joining with protesters, thirsty for democracy and a return to an Iran before the 1979 revolution?

More to the point, how will it look if the Trump administration, of all things, facilitates and encourages such change in Iran?

The prospect of this is not lost on the self-styled resistance and anti-Trump media, all too anxious to witness the ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Obama Library or hand a Nobel Prize to former Secretary of State John Kerry.

Overseeing the fall of an oppressive, hardline Iranian regime that sponsors terror all around the globe – followed by the rise of a democratic Iran not interested in aggression against its neighbors – would be a foreign policy victory for President Trump, one of the biggest for a president since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

We're a long, long way from the fall of the Iranian regime. Blood will flow in the streets before that happens. But at the very least, the United States should do everything possible to facilitate the regime's demise, included providing as much assistance as possible to those who oppose it, encouraging unrest and even revolt at Iran's borders (think: the Kurds), and ratcheting up sanctions against Iran (to strangle the Mullahs economically) for any and all human rights violations.

Barack Obama did virtually nothing along those lines in 2009-2010. Now we know that the shameful silence of the Obama administration in near identical circumstances in Iran in 2009 was a precursor to the even more shameful "Iran Deal" (along with billions in sanctions relief) that further strengthened the Mullahs who then, as now, oppressed women, gays, and the majority of all Iranians.

Ironically, Barack Obama's supporters have started a petition asking him to make a statement on this installment of Iran's green revolution. I suppose better seven years late than never. While they're at it, it might be a good idea for Obama's adoring fans to ask him to endorse President Trump's recent tweets on the subject.

As if on cue and days after Trump's support for the Iranian protesters, Hillary Clinton tweeted the following:

The Iranian people, especially the young, are protesting for the freedom and future they deserve. I hope their government responds peacefully and supports their hopes.

To which Ari Fleischer, ex-spokesperson for George W. Bush, produced the best tweet of New Year's Eve day:

Looks like she [Clinton] found one of her lost emails from 2009. Guess it was stuck in her outbox.

BTW, Hillary's position suggesting her request that the Iranian government "responds peacefully and supports their [the people's] hopes" is shockingly disingenuous [Clinton is hardly naive]. Our hope should be the overthrow of that government and replace it with a secular democracy that will no longer threaten the region, verifiably stop development of nuclear weapons and ICBMs, and cease support of Islamic terror on a worldwide scale. It's a big ask, no doubt, but it would be wonderful to hear Donald Trump state exactly that!