Over the weekend, both the president and vice president declared that they aren’t going to allow a mere once-in-a-generation democratic revolution and brutal suppression in Iran stand in the way of the Grand Bargain. In separate interviews, both Biden and Obama declared America ready to “engage” Iran. Someone should ask them, “Engage with whom?” Presumably, with the thugs who have murdered their own people and declared themselves bent on acquiring nuclear weapons and wiping out Israel. And presumably not the influential group of clerics who have decried the new government as “illegitimate.”

The president seems oblivious to what is perhaps the most significant development since the start of the Iranian popular revolt — the Qom’s Association of Religious Scholars’ call for new elections. As Reuel Marc Gerecht details in a fascinating column:

 This is likely a monumental blow to Ali Khamenei’s position as Supreme Leader. . .  They have now exploded into open dissent that guts the religious attacks of Khamenei’s most powerful allies–the Revolutionary Guard Corps and their baton-wielding thuggish appendage, the Basij–against Mir-Hussein Mousavi, the leader of the opposition. To use an Iraqi parallel: what the clerics of Qom just did to Khamenei is similar to what Ayatollah Sistani did to the Bush administration’s original idea of caucus balloting in Iraq (if we recall, the Bush administration came up with this plan since it feared both the demands and the results of a free election). Qom has shown itself to be the worthy inheritors of the more progressive clergy of the 1905-11 Iranian revolution, when ideas about representative government began to seep into traditional clerical views about the need for independent religious scholars to supervise the ethics of government. Qom has clearly said that the June 12th elections were fraudulent and therefore null and void; most of the city’s religious scholars have now implied, more openly than ever before, that Khamenei is an illegitimate ruler, who has betrayed the faith as well as the people. This is the stuff that in-house, counter-revolutions are made of.

Gerecht is rightly concerned that the president shows no sign that he is willing to re-evaluate his stance of abject timidity. (”President Obama appears to be blind to the most amazing time in the Middle East since the Islamic revolution.”) One can only marvel at the self-delusion that allows the president to say things like:

“We’ve got some fixed national security interests in Iran not developing nuclear weapons, in not exporting terrorism, and we have offered a pathway for Iran to rejoining the international community.”

No fixed interests in democracy or human rights, have we? And no fixed interests in pursuing a policy with a remote chance to bear fruit. How many Iranians must be hanged or thrown in Evin prison before Obama understands that the Iranian government is not interested in “rejoining the international community”? Is there no one in the administration who might point out the significance of the “severe disconnect between their objectives and reality”?

Ironically, while the president lives in his own fantasy world of engagement with a regime that might with a good shove collapse, according to a Times report, the Saudis are just fine with an Israeli strike on Iran. At least the Saudis have woken up to the danger posed by “the repressive Shi’ite regime in Tehran and have increased fears that it may emerge as a belligerent nuclear power.”

While the Saudis may be looking around for Plan B, Obama is plainly stuck on Plan A. There is no hint of the most “realistic” policy available being to tip the balance away from the current regime, deny legitimacy and recognition to the current crew, round up international organizations, and impose an array of sanctions to aid in those efforts. You know, just like the Obama team is trying out in Honduras (where the military and legislature were merely attempting to preserve their own constitution).

The president is willing to recognize no set of facts or moral considerations that will dissuade him from pursuing “engagement” with Iran. This is the triumph of blind ideology over reason, facts, history, and common sense.

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This entry was posted on Monday, July 6th, 2009 at 10:58 AM and is filed under Contentions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.