June 25th, 2010 by Farid

On June 11th, commemorating the one-year anniversary of the brutal crackdown on protesters  by the Iranian government, Senator John McCain wrote a piece in The New Republic saying, “I believe that it will only be a change in the Iranian regime itself—a peaceful change, chosen by and led by the people of Iran—that can finally produce the changes we seek in Iran’s policies.” Sen. McCain went on to say that “if President Obama were to unleash America’s full moral power to support the Iranian people—if he were to make their quest for democracy into the civil rights struggle of our time—it could bolster their will to endure in their struggle, and the result could be genuinely historic.”

Fareed Zakaria criticizes McCain for replacing analysis with rhetoric and foreign policy with fantasy. Zakaria argues that toppling the Islamic Republic of Iran and replacing it with a different regime is unlikely, and criticizes McCain and other neoconservatives for their “ignorance about the Iranian regime.” According to Zakaria, despite the mass opposition to Ahmadinejad, there are millions of supporters for his presidency — especially from the poorer and rural communities. Zakaria goes on to say that while eastern European revolutionary movements had nationalism, religion and democracy on their side, the Green Movement only has democracy. He comments, “The regime has always used the religiosity of the people to its advantage, but it has also become skilled at manipulating nationalism.” Paraphrasing award-winning Iranian human rights activist, Akbar Ganji, Zakaria says that “U.S. foreign policy does have an impact on Iran’s freedom movement but not quite in the sense that neoconservatives mean,” adding that the Iranian government has always manipulated international actions to its favor.

In response to Zakaria’s piece, Leon Wieseltier argues in his new op-ed that “it is the paradoxical failure of Zakaria’s imagination that he conflates moral power with military power, democratization with shock and awe.” Wieseltier also disagrees with Zakaria on his claim that religion is monopolized by the government, arguing that the religious establishment is already fractured and not in agreement over Iran’s future. Finally, he rejects Zakaria’s analysis of the “fantasy” held by neoconservatives, saying that Zakaria perhaps “believes that President Obama’s policy of respect and accommodation will solve the nuclear problem and bring a measure of decency to the rulers of Iran, but there is no empirical basis for such a belief,” suggesting that Zakaria himself is living in a fantasy.

Posted in Democracy Promotion, Elections, Freedom, Human Rights, Iran, Neocons, Reform, US foreign policy |