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Jewish World Review August 6, 2002 / 28 Menachem-Av, 5762
Michael Ledeen
The first: "A sudden surge in momentum for reform inside Iran was
reversed last month by President Bush's public expression of support for
the cause, according to Iranian analysts and foreign diplomats there."
The last: " 'I think, broadly speaking, reform is a bit
of a juggernaut,' one diplomat said. 'There's not much
an international power can do but affect the edges of
it.' "
So you see that logical consistency is not one of Karl
Vick's strong points. But then, neither is factual
accuracy. If one were to deconstruct the first, one
would point out that the momentum to end the
religious extremist tyranny in Iran had started many
months ago; there was no sudden surge in July. And
the anti-regime movement was greatly encouraged by
the president's words of support, as Karl Vick could
and should have documented simply by reading the
statements of gratitude from a large number of
pro-freedom organizations within the country, from
students to ayatollahs.
Vick and his sources argue that Bush's support for a
free Iran somehow played into the hands of the
tyrants (as always, described as "conservatives"),
because it enabled them to demand national unity
against the threat of American meddling. But this
conveniently overlooks the events that provoked the
president's July 12 statement: a massive, nation-wide
demonstration against the regime, followed by vicious
repression, mass arrests, increased censorship, and
the like. Thus the cycle that Vick pretends to
describe had already occurred before the president
spoke. It's preposterous to blame it on him.
Moreover, Vick's constant use of "reform" misses the
whole point of what is going on inside Iran these
days. The "reformers," who had twice elected
President Khatami, have long since lost popular
appeal because they have failed to reform anything.
Most Iranians see the "reformers" either as losers or
as frauds. Either way, they don't much matter any
more, and haven't for months, which is precisely
what the president said. The future of Iran is going to
be determined by the battle between the
self-appointed tyrants at the top and the
overwhelming majority of the Iranian people, who
have shown their hatred of the regime with mounting
courage with every passing month.
That's the story the Post should be reporting. Instead we get fantasies. It's
worth asking why.
I think the answer is of a piece with the falsification of the Cold War.
According to the Left, the Soviet Empire fell because St. Gorbachev
brought it down. Ronald Reagan had nothing to do with it, and in fact the
whole thing could have happened a lot earlier if only Reagan hadn't insisted
on saying all those mean things about the Soviet Union, like calling it an evil
empire.
Yet if you talk to any of the leading Soviet dissidents, they will tell you that
Reagan's words had an electric effect than ran from the Politburo to the
darkest cells in the Gulag. Once the Soviet peoples heard the American
president describe the Soviet regime in truthful words, they took courage
and fought even harder.
Once the evil regime in Tehran has been destroyed, you'll hear the same
thing from the Iranian freedom fighters. Meanwhile, skip the Post and the
many others who try to blame a brave American president for the evil
actions of the mullahs.
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