Iranian uprising seems to mean little to U.S. leaders

WASHINGTON — It has been painful to see so many political leaders in the United States devalue the Iranian uprising — potentially the most important event since the fall of the Berlin Wall — by using it to score cheap points off each other, disrespecting the people who are risking everything in the name of freedom.

The right had been blustering against Tehran for years and scolding the left for wanting negotiations with the Islamic tyranny. And yet, as soon as millions of Iranians took to the streets in defiance of both Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president, and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, much of the right acted as if it were more enraged about the possibility that an overthrow of the theocracy might validate Obama's foreign policy than about the despicable regime's conduct. This is the impression given by the likes of Sen. John McCain, House Republican Whip Eric Cantor and others who, in the wake of Iran's uprising, have had much more to say about the president of the United States than about the high stakes of the Persian crisis. Take it from Peggy Noonan, a conservative Republican, who wrote in The Wall Street Journal that "this was Aggressive Political Solipsism at work ... always make someone else's delicate drama your excuse for a thumping curtain speech."

As if conditioned by these leaders in perfect Pavlovian fashion, several right-wing outlets subordinated their coverage of Iran to domestic calculations. If you had been reading only the Drudge Report these past few days — to name but one very popular conservative-leaning Web site — you could hardly have noticed that an entire generation of Iranians raised under the theocracy are asking for their votes to be counted (democracy), women to be treated like human beings (equality under the law), students and intellectuals to be able to explore ideas (academic freedom) and, lo and behold, an end to hostility toward the West (peaceful coexistence).

President Barack Obama's initial response was prudent. The last thing you want, in a country whose late history has been one of retrogrades gaining the upper hand against modernizers by using nationalistic mythology, is to make the United States the issue. In fact, the reformists in Iran can draw on a tenuous homegrown tradition of liberal democracy. In 1906, in the aftermath of a powerful movement against the traditional shahs, the Iranians limited the power of the ruler, forcing him to accept an elected parliament and a liberal constitution. That modernization was arrested by Reza Pahlavi, founder of a new dynasty, who came to power in the 1920s after a coup backed by Western powers. Then, in the 1950s, Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, who lamentably embraced economic nationalism but attempted (again) to limit the power of the shah, was overthrown in a coup backed by Western powers.