Oh brudder!

By Carl

OK, this one might just be the stupidest piece of dreck I'll read all week:

Pejman Yousefzadeh, attorney and blogger:

Events of the past few days appear to have done nothing to curb the Obama Administration's fetish for negotiations with Iran -- this despite the fact that Iran is currently in turmoil, and that if the Administration holds off on pressing for negotiations with the likes of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it might -- might -- get a government in Iran more amenable to making a deal with the United States that assists both sides and improves the international security situation.

As a side note of sorts, one might add that while the Obama Administration is right to believe that an excessive degree of interventionism from the United States would likely backfire, hanging back too much would lead to deleterious results. When Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi visited the United States during the Carter Administration, anti-Shah demonstrators organized near the White House while an outdoor welcoming ceremony was being conducted. Things got out of hand, the police responded with tear gas, and unfavorable winds ensured that the tear gas drifted over to the White House -- turning the entire event to a disaster. Iranians who learned about this believed that the United States could have stopped any anti-Shah demonstration if the Shah was still in the good graces of the United States. Since the demonstration went forward, they concluded that the Carter Administration had lost confidence in the Shah--allowing the revolution to go forward without fear that the United States would do anything significant to back the Shah. And indeed, the Carter Administration did nothing to save him, thus reinforcing the impression in Iran that they wanted him gone.

First, as Sadly, No! points out, I would sincerely doubt that a demonstration in DC had any bearing whatsoever on events in Iran. Maybe on the lunatic fringe of the most hardcore Islamist fundamentalist ranks, but unless you're going to make the claim that fractal theory would hold that the two or three people who might buy this load of crap could topple a government...

Second, I want to focus on the rather bizarre disconnect between that first sentence and the phrase "hanging back too much would lead to deleterious results." You can't both be talking and not talking at the same time. As Bristol Palin will tell you, there's no such thing as "almost pregnant."

(Go ahead, Sarah. Sue me...)

Is it so hard for the folks on the right wing to accept that maybe, just maybe, the administration is working behind the scenes to try to find an equitable solution that gives Iran a fair election result while respecting its sovereignty? After all, given who is supporting Ahmadinejad (namely, Putin and Hu, neither of whom exactly has a spotless record on human rights when it comes to dissidents), it's a little hard for Obama to come out and make bold statements regarding the results of an election that appears to have been polluted, if not outright stolen.

As well, it's a little hard for America to point fingers about pilfered votes when we've just survived eight years of The Pretender.

This is not the Bush administration. Obama and his staff are not wearing sidearms and marching into the saloon to clean things up, and we ought to get behind his efforts to find a fruitful, peaceful negotiation. Bringing the Shah's name up at this point is truly not helpful, either, even in a sidenote. You have basically just equated Pahlavi with Mousavi. If you're dumb enough to buy into the fact that Iran has it's finger on America's pulse so gingerly as to pick up on tear gas, then surely the ruling Council will trot that equation out in a heartbeat.

Let's let the adults do the adult stuff.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)