Obama refuses to 'meddle' in Iran.

The insane Michael Leeden actually sums this up rather well:

What’s going to happen?, you ask. Nobody knows, even the major actors. The regime has the guns, and the opposition has the numbers. The question is whether the numbers can be successfully organized into a disciplined force that demands the downfall of the regime. Yes, I know that there have been calls for a new election, or a runoff between Mousavi and Ahmadinezhad. But I don’t think that’s very likely now. The tens of millions of Iranians whose pent-up rage has driven them to risk life and limb against their oppressors are not likely to settle for a mere change in personnel at this point. And the mullahs surely know that if they lose, many of them will face a very nasty and very brief future.

If the disciplined force comes into being, the regime will fall. If not, the regime will survive. Can Mousavi lead such a force? If anyone had said, even a few days ago, that Mousavi would lead a nation-wide insurrection, he’d have been laughed out of the room.

To this end I think that Obama is doing the right thing by keeping his nose out of this. This is for the Iranians to work out, and any interference from the west will only smack of the kind if imperialism which the Iranians - and many others in the Middle East - simply loathe.

US President Barack Obama is resisting pressure to side with Iran's opposition as mass protests continue over the nation's disputed presidential poll.

In a TV interview Mr Obama said there might not be much difference between the policies of President Ahmadinejad and rival Mir Hossein Mousavi.

Mr Mousavi's supporters have continued street protests despite the threat of government force and earlier bloodshed.

BBC correspondents in Tehran say the mood in the city is tense and angry.

Although, even if the regime fell, there's nothing to say that the new regime won't give us the exact same problems as the old one, especially regarding the nuclear issue.

Mohammed ElBaradei:

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency says he believes Iran is mastering nuclear technology and it wants the option of a nuclear weapon.

Mohammed ElBaradei told the BBC that countries with nuclear weapons were treated differently to those without.

He said North Korea, with a bomb, was invited to the conference table, while Saddam Hussein's Iraq, without one, was - as he put it - pulverised.

He called for engagement with Iran to remove the incentive for making a bomb.

"It is my gut feeling that Iran would like to have the technology to enable it to have nuclear weapons," Mr ElBaradei, director general of the IAEA, told the BBC's Middle East Editor Jeremy Bowen.

"They want to send a message to their neighbours, to the rest of the world, don't mess with us.

"But the ultimate aim of Iran, as I understand it, is they want to be recognised as a major power in the Middle East.

"This is to them the road to get that recognition, to get that power and prestige. It is also an insurance policy against what they have heard in the past about regime change."

I have no idea whether or not Iran are pursuing a nuclear weapon or whether they are pursuing nuclear energy, which is their right under the NNPT.

But, as ElBaradei hints at here, the moment George Bush named Iran as part of his Axis of Evil, he certainly made the pursuit of a nuclear weapon ten times more attractive.

The Iranians must have witnessed the difference in the way the neo-cons approached the North Koreans and the Iraqis. Which side would you rather be on in that equation?

So, I think Obama is doing the right thing. Keep out if this. Allow the Iranians to sort this out as they will.

And, when the result is known, engage with them as adults, acknowledging that pressure from Bush may very well have made them desire a nuclear weapon.

And, in any future discussion about possible Iranian nuclear weapons, always bear in mind that our responsibilities under the NNPT call on us to disarm.

Until we are serious about doing that, the NNPT is a sham. We should not be surprised if others want what we refuse to give up.

UPDATE:



Obama speaks on the subject.

Click title for full article.

Tags: Obama, Iran, elections