Obama’s stance on Iran
The Chicago Tribune recently reported Obama’s stance on US involvement in Iran, where currently many innocent civilians are being beaten or even killed for protesting an obviously unfair election. Many have questioned the president’s stance, saying that he has taken too neutral of an approach in dealing with the conflict. This opposition includes many republicans, such as Sen. John McCain, who commented that “You can’t seriously negotiate with a country that’s beating and killing their citizens, and I don’t think the president quite understands that.” However, President Obama contends that “I made it clear that the United States respects the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran and is not interfering with Iran’s affairs,” and continued, “But only I’m the president of the United States, and I’ve got responsibilities in making certain that we are continually advancing our national security interests and that we are not used as a tool to be exploited by other countries.”
I found an editorial written by John Kass (Chicago Tribune) that I believe encompasses my argument perfectly. Kass writes that although what is happening in Iran is a horrid atrocity, American involvement could possibly compromise our international relationships and national security: “Complicating all this is that Israel might attack, to knock down the growing Iranian nuclear capacity that threatens Israel. Such an attack might destabilize the Iranian regime, but it would certainly provide another anti-American rallying cry for radical Islamists throughout the world, at a time when Obama is reaching out to Muslim nations.”
What has happened in Iran in recent weeks has been abominable; deaths, such as Neda Agha-Soltan, have occurred as the result of innocent Iranian citizens fighting for what is right. I fully support these citizens and the reasoning behind the riots; the Iranian elections were not fair, and civilians should be rioting. However, republicans say that the answer is for the United States to get involved and tell the Iranian government what to do. I’m not sure I agree with that. Obviously, the Iranian government is in the wrong, and the horrors that have befallen these innocent civilian rioters completely defies any sort of morality or rationality that a government should have in relation to its citizens. However, it seems that telling the Iranian government what to do would only complicate things. The United States seems to have somewhat of a reputation worldwide for arrogantly getting involved in business that isn’t ours. This only solidifies that belief.
I believe that as American citizens we are quite privileged to live in a country in which we are not slaughtered, beat, and jailed by our government for questioning what it does. Consequentially, we should feel a want to support these demonstrations and get involved with the cause. But the US government telling the Iranian government how to handle their affairs, I feel, is crossing the line. In a perfect world, yes, Obama could tell Iran how ridiculously immoral the treatment of their citizens has been and how dysfunctional their election process is; but we live in a world where Obama is held accountable for our own safety and must act accordingly.
Comment by Brandon on 25 June 2009 at 10:54 am:
Obama has taken the right tack more or less. He needs to shut up and wait. Anything he does will do more harm than good at this stage. It is unclear how widespread discontent is and how precarious a position the current regime is in. ANYTHING he says will provide ammunition to the Ahmadinejad camp who will rail against foreign interference in domestic affairs, which will only energize them. The protesters know “the West” is on their side. Anything we say now will only hurt their cause. Revolutions and change have to come from within to be stable or they will need decades of Team America: World Police protection. We can’t afford it. They don’t want it. We need to stay the hell out unless and until it hits a critical tipping point.
Comment by Evan on 26 June 2009 at 7:19 am:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-ui-trustees-26-jun26,0,3541380.story
Apologies for hijacking this post, but a lot of people here have attended UI’s law school, and I thought they and others would find this article interesting.
” In one e-mail exchange, University of Illinois Chancellor Richard Herman forced the law school to admit an unqualified applicant backed by then- Gov. Rod Blagojevich while seeking a promise from the governor’s go-between that five law school graduates would get jobs. The applicant, a relative of deep-pocketed Blagojevich campaign donor Kerry Peck, appears to have been pushed by Trustee Lawrence Eppley, who often carried the governor’s admissions requests.”
Comment by Billy Joe Mills on 29 June 2009 at 9:39 pm:
Rosie,
I’m glad you posted this because Urbanagora has not said enough about the Iranian elections. It’s a huge issue. I think this issue far outweighs things like health care. On domestic issues, we are smoothing the rough edges, but in foreign affairs we are responsible for spreading freedom. Our pop culture and our sense of freedom is insanely pervasive and influential in the world. It has been far more powerful in changing the world for good than our military.
However, I have heard many Iranians requesting a strong stance from Obama. I don’t think we should send in tanks, but sending in strong words is within our diplomatic rights and strategies. Our last president categorized the entire country as being among the Axis of Evil. This label allowed many of us to forget the mass of progressive and secular Iranians. We see them now. Simply supporting them verbally is far less of an insult than labeling them as “evil.” I have no problems with verbally interfering in a country’s elections when they are patently fraudulent.
Regardless, great post Rosie P :)
Comment by Rosie on 30 June 2009 at 8:48 am:
Good point; I would agree that it is very important to support the more progressive Iranians that, in the last administration, were forgotten because they fell under that negative label. Especially now; it is this group of people that are fighting for what is right. I would definitely agree with that. I guess my issue is not so much with the verbal intervention, but actually physically intervening in something this complex, to me, will only end negatively. Thanks for reading :)
Comment by Tim on 8 July 2009 at 7:48 pm:
Hey guys.
I hope you’ll check this out.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/06/19-11
Quite a few in my department at U of I are Iranians, and I’ve always found their political problems “interesting,” to say the least.