Thursday, February 17, 2011

Mousavi is missing


Mir Hussein Mousavi, who some of you might remember is the man who ran against Ahmedinejad in the disputed '09 election, as well as his wife have both not been seen by friends or family since Tuesday. This comes on the heels of pronouncements the past couple of days from members of Iran's Parliament to execute Mousavi and other opposition leaders as protests continue to rock the Iranian government.
The thuggish tactics of the Ayatollah and Ahmedinejad will only motivate the opposition further, but if they set about executing Mousavi or Kerroubi, the illegitimacy of their regime will have hit a new low. The Obama Administration has sat on the sidelines for the most part thus far (as they did in '09), but if something has been done to Mousavi, I think it will be time for the US and international community to step in and become more direct in their support for the opposition. We're witnessing a historic moment in the Middle East, and the last thing Obama wants to be remembered for doing is twiddling his thumbs while it all happened. I understand excercising restraint when we're talking about an ally like Bahrain (although we should be using that strategic position to be trying to prevent the violence of the king's goon squad). And the Iranian equation is certainly complicated. But what those people need is an ally, someone to help them in a historic struggle, and in the long run America should want to be the one who provided that aid.

1 comment:

Megan said...

I agree. Obama's 2009 reaction (or lack thereof) to protesters was a HUGE betrayal of human rights and everything America stands for.