Obama misses the revolution *UPDATED*
Bookworm on Jun 21 2009 at 9:34 pm | Filed under: Barack Obama, Iran
In the email giving the heads up about this post, Steve Schippert had one word, which he practically yelled: “H.U.G.E.”
As you may recall, early on in this Iranian thing, I wondered if the protest would coalesce around anything. Without a focus, it would just drift away. With a focus — well, anything is possible. It seems the focus is in place (getting rid of the Supreme Leader), a martyr has been created in timely fashion, and the Revolution is ready.
Would you all please remind me where Barack Obama was during all of this? There’s something almost poetic about a Leftie missing out on a revolution entirely. If things do go down, he owes the Iranian people a huge apology for backing the wrong horse.
UPDATE: Andy McCarthy explains why Obama may be quite comfortable sitting out this particular revolution:
The fact is that, as a man of the hard Left, Obama is more comfortable with a totalitarian Islamic regime than he would be with a free Iranian society. In this he is no different from his allies like the Congressional Black Caucus and Bill Ayers, who have shown themselves perfectly comfortable with Castro and Chàvez. Indeed, he is the product of a hard-Left tradition that apologized for Stalin and was more comfortable with the Soviets than the anti-Communists (and that, in Soros parlance, saw George Bush as a bigger terrorist than bin Laden).
Because of obvious divergences (inequality for women and non-Muslims, hatred of homosexuals) radical Islam and radical Leftism are commonly mistaken to be incompatible. In fact, they have much more in common than not, especially when it comes to suppression of freedom, intrusiveness in all aspects of life, notions of “social justice,” and their economic programs. (On this, as in so many other things, Anthony Daniels should be required reading — see his incisive New English Review essay, ”There Is No God but Politics”, comparing Marx and Muslim Brotherhood theorist Sayyid Qutb.) The divergences between radical Islam and radical Leftism are much overrated — “equal rights” and “social justice” are always more rally-cry propaganda than real goals for totalitarians, and hatred of certain groups is always a feature of their societies.
The key to understanding Obama, on Iran as on other matters, is that he is a power-politician of the hard Left : He is steeped in Leftist ideology, fueled in anger and resentment over what he chooses to see in America’s history, but a “pragmatist” in the sense that where ideology and power collide (as they are apt to do when your ideology becomes less popular the more people understand it), Obama will always give ground on ideology (as little as circumstances allow) in order to maintain his grip on power.
Makes sense to me.
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7 Responses to “Obama misses the revolution *UPDATED*”
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When we needed a man to lead and defend us, our betters sent us a Marxist with the spine of a nancy boy.
Are there any MEN in the Democratic Party?
In the Democratic Party……maybe Joe Leiberman but that’s all.
If it does become a revolution, it will be a long time in the making and won’t happen overnight. Which means that Obama will be ok on this one. The final act may not happen for a few years, he doesn’t have long of an attention span.
Meanwhile icecream and golf are much more important.
I’m sure Obama will reappear once the revolution is all over to claim credit for it.
The attempt to get rid of the Shah was backed by Islamist megalomaniac, Leftist useful idiots, and reformist minded dupes. As such, every death was used to create more death, as a way to justify Khomeini’s power base and decrease the authority of the Shah.
Now, however, the Left is not backing the civil disturbances in Iran, because the status quo government is their ally and not their enemy.
This will, naturally, create a more rational movement, but it will also decrease the chances of its success. For unlike the Shah, Iran’s current leaders have no desire to better the lives of their people.
And should the reformers of Iran get in the way of Obama’s self-aggrandizement, they will go the same way as the Shia in 1991-2, the same way as the Cuban freedom fighters in the Bay of Pigs, and the same way as the Republic of Vietnam’s armed forces in the Vietnam War after the Fall of Saigon.
You all here know or at least suspect the ruthless mendacity powering the Left, which gives them not only the motivation but the justification to trample all others underfoot if that can acquire them power and influence.
Khomeini executed, exiled, and essentially punished the useful idiots fueling the revolution to oust the Shah in Iran, with the covert aid of Jimmy Carter and the international transnational movement. They got theirs.
Obama is not less ruthless, he simply operates under certain limitations that Khomeini never had. Limitations that force him under certain paths and away from others, although such things can always be bended and perverted.
Because of obvious divergences (inequality for women and non-Muslims, hatred of homosexuals) radical Islam and radical Leftism are commonly mistaken to be incompatible.
Anyone that has seen what apostates from the Left, whether they be gay or women or hispanic or black, are treated, they would have no need to be “educated” on this “issue of divide” cause they would see that it is no divide. It is simply another stylistic approach.
Islam executes gays for being gays, or apostates, as being against Sharia.
The Democrats persecute anyone that becomes an apostate by either siding with the opposition, which would be us, or questioning Leftist platforms or leaders.
The Left derives their power from our own form of Sharia and inshallah. In this sense, that would be the US Constitution. They owe their safety, their positions, and their immunity to it. Yet just as the leadership of Iran owes their authority to Allah and the Quran, so too do they seek to undermine it and exploit its words or teachings for the political benefit of the powerful (which would be they themselves).
Thus any threat to their manipulation of the levers of power is met by extreme prejudice, madness, and hate. After all, what better cause of hate than fear.
When a Democrat questions Democrat atrocities and starts to ask forbidden questions, that Democrat becomes a threat to the Democrat’s manipulation of the Law and the Constitution. When an Iranian or Muslim questions Islam or the Quran or Allah or Mohammed, they are excised from the public body, tortured, executed, or otherwise made an example of so that everyone will calm back down and stay in their places. The status quo has always been favored by the megalomaniacs, so long as they were the ones in power, of course.
This is made even more convenient when the mullahs present themselves as the guardians of Sharia and Allah. Just as the Left has positioned themselves as being the guardians of “choice”, “free speech”, “government out of private lives”, “separation of church and state”, and so forth.
Surely the levers of power appear different, but they operate in exactly the same fashion, on the same principles. This would be apparent had the public education system of the US been worth a damn. But it isn’t worth a damn, and that’s why few if anyone knows exactly where power comes from and how exactly it is manipulated.
In that gaping maw of ignorance, con men and self-aggrandizing megalomaniacs like Obama step forth to fill the vacuum. They have the answers, you see. You just simply have to hand over the cash.