With each front-page story in the New York Times and every report from the BBC predicting the q-word for American troops in Iraq, my optimism ticks up. This isn’t to say that we don’t have a hell of a task in Iraq and that some of it won’t be tough on soldiers. But in the broader view, there are a handful of encouraging signs in the Middle East, all of which suggest that the Bush gamble on remaking the region is again defying skeptics. Egypt is now seriously engaged in pressuring Islamist terrorists to deal with the Palestinian Authority. The intervention of Arab countries in this dispute is central to any hope of even minimal success. My bet is that many of these Arab leaders have grown to respect Bush and even fear him. Iraq was a critical testing ground for this trust; and the president proved his mettle. Meanwhile, the news from Iran is inspiring. Student and dissident protests have led to serious violence; and have now entered a sixth consecutive night. As the Washington Post explains:
The complaints of ordinary Iranians … center on an authoritarian religious government that has failed to respond to demands for greater personal freedoms and at least the hope for a better economic future. More than 70 percent of Iran’s 67 million people are under the age of 30 and too young to recall the 1979 Islamic revolution that deposed the U.S.-installed monarchy of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and brought the clerics to power. Tehran residents saw evidence over the weekend that protests could bring at least marginal results in an economy closely controlled by the central government: The price of a pound of chicken, for example, dropped from the equivalent of $1 to 60 cents. Newspapers that largely ignored the protests did carry news that a hike in railway ticket prices would be rolled back.
This is how tyrannies fall. Once the regime is exposed as defensive, insecure and reliant on paramilitary thugs to maintain order, its legitimacy, already crumbling, can begin to slide into nothing. Again, could the success in Iraq have had something to do with this? Of course it has.
THE YOUNG IRANIANS: This story from the New York Times also warmed my heart. The battle against theocracy – largely won in the West for the last couple of centuries – is still in its infancy in Iran, but the themes are the same:
“It takes a lot of courage just to walk with a woman down the main street of Isfahan,” said Payam, a 21-year-old with the shoulder-length hair that many male students grow as a form of protest. “We don’t want a government that prescribes to us all the time what is good and what is bad,” he added. Activist students are struck by the fact that the revolution puts great emphasis on education, then seeks to veil their minds. “We should be able to criticize the government, the religion,” said Hamed, a 21-year-old engineering major. “If we want to be able to understand it, we should be able to criticize it.”
Exactly. I wonder if there’s a way the blogosphere can help. Maybe some kind of “Freedom in Iran Day,” where we all pledge to write about the struggle, link to Persian and Iranian websites and blogs, and generally send out a webby gesture of solidarity. This revolution may not be televised. But it sure will be blogged.
THE EURO MENACE: My latest piece on Giscard D’Estaing’s shenanigans is now posted.
The Dish 