WHAT TO DO ABOUT IRAN--HOPE, CHANGE OR DUCK

Maybe, as a friend recently e mailed me, the public dissent of mullah’s in the holy city of Qom is “the most meaningful news thus far out of Iran.” All news from Iran should be measured against this central fact: we do not know who won the election and with how many votes.

A friend in Iran who voted for the supposed loser and who very much wants reform, told me Amadinezhad won because of strong support from nationalists and by virtue of his populist appeal among poor and rural voters.

His opinion was supported by foreigners inside Iran and by polls taken by at least one credible group that used phoned into Iran using non-profit groups and pollsters speaking Farsi. The pollsters talked to over 1000 Iranians in all 30 provinces and showed Amadinezhad leading Mousavi 2 to 1, approximately the same as the reported vote count. Note, phone polls are hardly likely to be biased for the poor.

It reminds me of how many people in all parts of Russia have told me over the years how Stalin’s death brought millions of people onto the street shedding genuine tears. National leaders who seem certifiably nuts from outside a country can enjoy long period of majority popularity among their own people—Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Idi Amin, Fidel Castro, Juan Peron. Large protests that dominate foreign media are not valid polls.

The Iranian vote may have included fraud and manipulation in both the campaign and the actual vote and its count. That does not mean Amadinejhad doesn’t have a majority. At least one commentator has suggested that the non-Muslim media are suffering from “cell phone myopia.” They believe that if cell phones are dominated by a certain opinion, then that appears to be the opinion of the nation as a whole.
The existence of any opposition in places like Iran is a positive. Even more interesting that religious leaders in Iran’s holy city speak publicly against the Khamenei approved president. More important, what are they in favor of? Truly democratic elections? A different theocracy? Respect for the sovereignty of other countries, including their embassies and diplomats?

Western governments and Arab governments in the Middle East that fear Iran can only hope that what are almost certainly minority protest voices can become a large enough force to topple Khamenei and his man, Amadinejhad.

The European Union whose diplomats were arrested in violation of international law, has done nothing but tell Iran’s ambassadors that the situation is “unacceptable.” That’s diplomatese for we’re still thinking, don’t call us, we’ll call you. Maybe.

There is one country where “unacceptable” usually leads to a remedy, and both Europe and the US seem to be leaving the solution of what they really fear in Iran—the bomb—up to Israel. Vice President Biden said "Israel can determine for itself — it’s a sovereign nation — what’s in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else." That’s diplomatese message to Iran—if you get near having a bomb, we’ll sic Israel on you.

President Obama’s chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullens, said, “I think it’s very important, as we deal with Iran, that we don’t take any options, including military options, off the table.” (Was he quoting George Bush?)

We might sum up both US and European three pronged policy on Iran as hope, change, or duck-- talk more and hope, leave it up to the protestors to change Iran’s direction, or let Israel bail us out and duck.

President Obama's Practice Test

Must President Obama find his equivalent to Reagan’s “Evil Empire” and Bush’s “Axis of Evil"? Even if he can find a euphemism for a word many once made synonymous with what they said was an arrogant righteousness, no one can deny the nature of the men who govern Sudan.

New York Times columnist Nicolas Kristof has seen many horrors around the world, but wrote of Sudan, “nothing prepared me for Darfur, where systematic murder, rape, and mutilation are taking place on a vast scale, simply based on the tribe of the victim. What I saw reminded me why people say that genocide is the worst evil of which human beings are capable.”

In addition, the essence of the situation is racism—ruling ethnic Arabs enslaving and slaughtering black Africans. On March 4 the International Court indicted al-Bashir on 7 counts of war crimes. As long ago as 2004 Secretary of State Colin Powell found bipartisan support when he said al-Bashir’s regime was guilty of genocide. Can even a moral relativist doubt that whether Sudan is on an axis or just a point, its regime is evil?

This week Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir ordered all major foreign aid agencies out of the country. Secretary of State Clinton said the move would create "untold misery and suffering." She also warned the Sudanese regime that it would be “held responsible for every single death that occurs in those camps, because by their expulsion of the aid workers ... they are putting those 1.4 million lives at risk."

Now President Obama must fulfill that promise or lose his credibility in world affairs. So, how will he hold al-Bashir responsible? Broadly described his policy choices are three:
--diplomatic pressure and criticism
--economic and political sanctions
--military action which might be through the UN, by a coalition, or unilateral
--do nothing

The President campaigned on and entered office with a promise to resolve international crises through diplomacy and coalition building, the kind of solution he said Bush should have used in Iraq. So far the preferred option is the same option that has failed for more than four years—diplomacy and consultation with the UN. The immediate goal, says Sec. Clinton, is nothing more than reversing the expulsion order.

If it works, where are we? Foreign aid and humanitarian agencies have been in Sudan for more than a decade, and neither they nor diplomacy have stopped the slaughter. The UN Security Council offers little hope since China and Russia oppose sanctions and will certainly oppose stronger action. Besides, UN sanctions in Iraq were widely criticized for both increasing the suffering of Iraqis and funding Hussein’s weapons program through UN corruption.

The situation President Obama faces in Sudan is not very different from the situation President Bush faced in Iraq in 2002, except that Sudan has far less strategic importance, and there’s not even a suspicion Sudan poses an external military threat. That leaves President Obama to try to pull off a diplomatic miracle or use force.

The only other option is to say we care deeply, stir the world to sympathy with moving speeches, and watch the slaughter continue. Obama has professed great admiration for Teddy Roosevelt whose policy was “talk softly but carry a big stick.” Talk much and do little might fit under the Nixonian definition of realpolitik, but it won’t satisfy the desire for hope and change.

Joe Biden during the campaign made his famous warning that a foreign power would put Obama to a serious test in his first months in office. Sudan is not that test, but it may be a test of the President’s ability to pass the coming test.