Let’s review: I support freedom and democracy. I especially support freedom and democracy for states where there is little of it. Iran is such a state. Iran also happens to be a state led by Muslim fundamentalists whose puppet leader has been calling Israel all kinds of nasty things and strongly stating that it must be eliminated as a state (I know, I know, Juan Cole says that’s not what was said, but that is in fact what was said and people like Cole and Cohen now look precisely like the fools they have been for a long time because the latest developments in Iran prove them wrong).

So when Cohen first wrote about Iranian Jews being decently treated, we criticized him for it. However, as the sparring article linked to in the previous comment shows, it was hard to squash his stupid commentary because he could rely upon the fact that there was no substantive evidence that what he said is false.

We can see now that he was wrong. He basically acknowledges it in his latest piece in the NY Times, without taking that last step and apologizing. He should have also been upfront in the op-ed about Iranian Jews and indicated that he had a translator with him and the translator was a government informant. He didn’t.

Somehow, bringing up that Jews and other minorities in Iran have little freedom and that Cohen is a fool whose reports can’t be trusted is viewed as extreme by an Obama supporter who apparently also supports Cohen. Why? What is extreme about my views? That I see Iran as hostile and truly dangerous? That I believe it is a sponsor of terror and of the two militias on Israel’s borders that have engaged Israel in attacks and wars? That I don’t believe the Jews there have decent lives? That I speak out about it and claim their democracy isn’t real and their lies about nukes both warrant the approbation of the international community before they gain the impossible-to-defeat nuclear arsenal they so desire?

I’m not even pushing for war or an attack on Iran. I hope that sanctions will do the trick. If somebody (like our new President) would get on it instead of playing the appeasement and oh-they’re-good-people-so-let’s-see-if-treating-them-politely-will-get-them-to-budge while they continue to build out their dream, maybe this could be stopped in time.

People like Cohen undermine that possibility with their foolish articles. There is nothing extreme in anything I’ve written here at all. That is, there’s nothing extreme unless your views are so slanted to supporting a President that you have to tear down his critics in order to promote his views.

jta.org/news/a...

“Were you paid by the Iranian government for your trip?” one audience member asked Cohen.

No, Cohen said, though he paid an Iranian agency $150 a day for the services of a translator, who acknowledged that he would have to file a report on Cohen’s doings with the authorities.

In his presentation, Cohen said that labeling Iran a totalitarian regime ready to destroy Israel and the West’s infidels is a “grotesque caricature.” Rather, he argued, Iran’s leadership is pragmatic and primarily concerned with assuring its own survival.

Iran, he said, is the most democratic state in the Middle East outside Israel, and its leadership opposes the Taliban and al-Qaida.

Roger Cohen on June 20, 2009:

nytimes.com/20...

The world is watching, and technology is connecting, and the West is sending what signals it can, but in the end that is true. Iranians have fought this lonely fight for a long time: to be free, to have a measure of democracy.

…

The same cry was heard in 1979, only for one form of absolutism to yield to another. Iran has waited long enough to be free.

I’m sorry, did somebody say he wasn’t a fool?

Apparently none of these things which Cohen can eloquently and more expertly comment on (despite his subjectivity) are of significance to you, Middle – all because of one tiny little word – “narrow”. With that utterance, you apparently feel that so much offense has been done to your effort – this cause to demonize Cohen, that you will avoid the incredibly larger picture which we have been discussing.

Are all these other things regarding what is happening in Iran really less important to you than how Cohen flubs in his musings on the treatment of Iranian Jews? If so, maybe you should change your alias from “themiddle” to “The Extremist”.

Or as Mr Miyagi said regarding a “so-so” knowledge of karate, “Walk on road. Walk right side, safe. Walk left side, safe. Walk middle, sooner or later [makes squish gesture] get the squish, just like grape.”

A polemicist should actually take a side every now and then. Leave the middle to the voters.

But now he says – “Iran has waited long enough to be free.” I thought Iran was free already – and that Jews are only “treated with…consistent warmth…in Iran.

He’s either a complete idiot – or a liar and a hypocrite. I say all three.

The NYT isn’t the most objective paper, either (and BTW, is there such thing?). But their reporting on developing stories involving conflicts like what’s happening in Iran right now is very good.

Or maybe I should read reasonable blogs that don’t have a bias based on ethnicity or religion, like Juan Cole’s.

There are different kinds of support. At this point, I figure they think that if they had military support, that would be the most helpful. But I’m sure they’d prefer that come in the form of the Basij and other Iranian forces sympathizing with their cause. Rhetorical support from abroad makes for good propaganda – for us – and might make the demonstrators feel better. But the history of American support for the Shah and the overthrow of the more democratic regime that preceded him under Moussadeq (sp?) makes enough Iranians leery of American interference for the reformers and demonstrators to know that overly forceful rhetoric would be an entirely counter-productive measure. Any revolution that isn’t articulated and advanced primarily from within is bound fail. That’s what the Neocons didn’t get. And still don’t get.

I think John Kerry’s remarks on this were pretty apt, actually.

Further, most Iranians have bought into the nuclear rhetoric because they see it as an issue of national prestige. As I understand things, they honestly see it in terms of energy production, and not in terms of becoming an (illegally) armed state that is able to blackmail its neighbors. That is the way the Iranian populace sees the issue. And frankly, there is no legal structure for actually preventing them from developing nuclear power as an energy source. Maybe that worries you. But I would feel much safer knowing that, if nuclear development is going to occur – and it will – that the focus is NOT on weapons development, and that the regime is not a belligerent one. There is a real chance that a reformist-led Iran (albeit with a different Supreme Leader, or preferably none at all) would put an end to its export of terror and material and/or political support for Hizbullah/Hamas. It’s not for certain, but it’s a safer bet than pretending that the outcome of this movement would have no effect on Iran’s current trajectory.

What does an interest in topics of interest to Jews have to do with not being biased about such topics – no matter how serious an interview or an individual is? By definition, that is how one determines a bias – when one has a strong interest in something. It doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing. Just that it’s not likely to be objective.

If Obama is not forceful about the question of democracy and the basic rights of people to express their political will – and he has now been relatively silent about Egypt and Iran in the space of a couple of weeks – why would the Iranians who rule the country have any concerns that he will stand up to their nuclear program?

As for your other suppositions, I don’t have that much of a problem with Obama at this point. It’s too early to tell what he’s going to be like and he’s made some reasonable decisions.

And this is Jewlicious.com. We talk about Jewish topics here or try to tie general topics to Jewish life.

1. Mousavi’s stances on foreign policy twenty years ago don’t make a convincing case for why he would foresake his widespread support, which is based on a completely different stance, today.

2. The assertion that Ahmedinejad “took (the use of minorities for foreign propaganda) to a higher level”, is in itself an admission that Ahmedinejad is worse in this regard and not to be preferred over Mousavi.

3. Is “JewishJournal” the least biased source you can find regarding the treatment of minorities in Iran? And is the status of Jews in Iran really something that concerns you more than Iran’s foreign policy?

4. Wasn’t there some way you could tie in incompetence/idiocy/dissimulation/a nefarious plot on Obama’s part into your last comment?

(Sarcasm).

jewishjournal....

They don’t make a difference since both of these candidates have hardline histories in their fundamentalist loyalties to the discriminatory Islamic Republic of Iran constitution as well as documented anti-Israeli policies and military planning. Mousavi, for example was not only the initiator of the current nuclear program In Iran but he was among the leading officials as Prime Minister in the 1980s behind the creation of the Lebanese Hezbollah terrorist group and the deployment of thousands of Revolutionary Guards in Southern Lebanon and Baalbek area.

and

The “reformers” were the ones who initiated the using of minorities for major foreign propaganda, but Ahmadinejad took this to a higher level and was behind the continuous efforts for bringing sympathetic or bought off journalists to Iran to report on the “ideal” conditions of the religious minorities in Iran. Ahmadinejad, forced the removal of the old and obedient Jewish leadership in Iran since they finally refused to accept his Holocaust denying statements. The “reformers” as some in the West like to call them, will certainly do the same and appoint Jewish “representatives” according to their needs.

And a very shrewd move it was, given how ridiculous Khamenei now sounds when trying to blame the protests on “America” at his Friday sermon, thereby further delegitimizing the credibility of the Supreme Leader.

If Mousavi is successful, then Obama’s statement puts the new Iranian president in the rather difficult position of having to defy it – given the fact that he ran on, and was elected on, a platform of decreasing international tensions.

There is a difference between taking account of multiple realities as a responsible head of state and being personally motivated by any one of them in particular.

We will know in less than two months how well or how poorly Obama handled this – and how honestly the criticism of him now was voiced out of an appeal to: intellectual honesty, patriotic concern, or partisan bullshit.

And so must be Barack Hussein Obama:

In an interview with CNBC, Obama was asked about the continued unrest in Iran following last week’s election.

“First of all, it’s important to understand that although there is amazing fervor taking place in Iran,” Obama said, “the difference between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi in terms of their actual policies may not be as great as has been advertised.”

If G-d has as much control over free will as you propose in your last paragraph, then perhaps – if the Iranian revolution turns out to be a success and turns out to install a moderating stance in Tehran, then the deity will get you, and Krauthammer, and everyone else who gets their rocks off by obsessing over a scary, ugly Ahmedinejad as the face of a scary, parochial regime, to write an apologetic retraction as well.

You are not motivated by realism but by myopia and fear.