One Day More
Tomorrow is February 11th, the anniversary of the Khomeinist seizure of power in Iran. It seems the world is set to witness a spectacle of historical import there. The Green movement hasn't erupted in a few weeks, since the the funeral of Montazeri, and its leaders are encouraging nationwide protests tomorrow. Likewise the regime is "thugging up" for a massive confrontation. It's a real world example of that tense, pre-revolutionary moment, in which both sides and the world wait and anticipate, perfectfully captured in the brilliant score to Les Miserables. In "One Day More" the revolutionaries ponder the great future of a world remade:
"One day to a new beginning,
Raise the flag of freedom high!
Every man will be a king.
Every man will be a king.
There's a new world for the winning.
There's a new world to be won."
While the arm of the state, Javert, bolsters his confidence:
"One day more till revolution,
We will nip it in the bud!
We'll be ready for these schoolboys,
They will wet themselves with blood!"
This article by Amir Taheri sums up nicely the current state of affairs as we await tomorrow's events. One can only admire the brave, freedom-seeking Iranian people and pray for their eventual triumph over tyranny, and likewise loathe Khamenei & Ahmadinejad and hope they are relegated to history's dustbin. There is no ambiguity as to the moral calculus here.
As for our own selfish purposes, the geopolitical question, this could be our last chance to have the world's most pressing geopolitical threat neutralized with a silver bullet, which points up what a monumental blunder President Obama's past fumbling and current silence represents. Prior to June of last year, Iran had been a long-standing intractable situation hurtling toward a resolution via one of two terrible options - a fanatical, acopalyptic regime armed with nuclear weapons or a military strike of uncertain effectiveness and unpredictable consequences. To the extent that this global problem had a silver bullet, it arrived in June with the fraudulent presidential election that ignited popular resentment and unleashed months of steady, widespread protest. A regime change from within that moved Iran from a fanatical, West-loathing regime to a liberated, democratic society desirous of engagement with the modern world would have been a rare miracle, a moral and geopolitical win-win for the ages. And President Obama did nothing and said nothing. To make it that much more inexcusable, he failed not because he just missed something or misread the situation, he did nothing and said nothing because his approach rested on the arrogance that he was unique in this world, that he alone possessed the ability to resolve the situation where decades of efforts have previously failed. Hence the power, prestige and moral exmaple of the United States of America is out of the game. The Iranians have only themselves and we can only wish them the best and pray for them. And so, one last line from Les Miserables:
"Tomorrow will discover what our God in Heaven has in store.
One more dawn. One more day. One day more!"
"One day to a new beginning,
Raise the flag of freedom high!
Every man will be a king.
Every man will be a king.
There's a new world for the winning.
There's a new world to be won."
While the arm of the state, Javert, bolsters his confidence:
"One day more till revolution,
We will nip it in the bud!
We'll be ready for these schoolboys,
They will wet themselves with blood!"
This article by Amir Taheri sums up nicely the current state of affairs as we await tomorrow's events. One can only admire the brave, freedom-seeking Iranian people and pray for their eventual triumph over tyranny, and likewise loathe Khamenei & Ahmadinejad and hope they are relegated to history's dustbin. There is no ambiguity as to the moral calculus here.
As for our own selfish purposes, the geopolitical question, this could be our last chance to have the world's most pressing geopolitical threat neutralized with a silver bullet, which points up what a monumental blunder President Obama's past fumbling and current silence represents. Prior to June of last year, Iran had been a long-standing intractable situation hurtling toward a resolution via one of two terrible options - a fanatical, acopalyptic regime armed with nuclear weapons or a military strike of uncertain effectiveness and unpredictable consequences. To the extent that this global problem had a silver bullet, it arrived in June with the fraudulent presidential election that ignited popular resentment and unleashed months of steady, widespread protest. A regime change from within that moved Iran from a fanatical, West-loathing regime to a liberated, democratic society desirous of engagement with the modern world would have been a rare miracle, a moral and geopolitical win-win for the ages. And President Obama did nothing and said nothing. To make it that much more inexcusable, he failed not because he just missed something or misread the situation, he did nothing and said nothing because his approach rested on the arrogance that he was unique in this world, that he alone possessed the ability to resolve the situation where decades of efforts have previously failed. Hence the power, prestige and moral exmaple of the United States of America is out of the game. The Iranians have only themselves and we can only wish them the best and pray for them. And so, one last line from Les Miserables:
"Tomorrow will discover what our God in Heaven has in store.
One more dawn. One more day. One day more!"
posted by Donny Baseball at 9:42 AM
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