Friday, July 24, 2009

Garry Kasparov: Iran's democrats deserve full support !


  • Regardless of its short-term outcome, the Green Revolution in Iran is already a tremendously important event. Iranian citizens are risking their lives to defend their votes and giving the lie to the idea that democracy cannot sprout in hostile soil without external influence. This is of great relevance to people living in autocracies, especially in Russia, my home country.

The Iranian dictatorship is harvesting the bitter fruit of its own policies of radicalization. For decades it exploited fanatical religious beliefs and hosted mass demonstrations. Now these forces are turning against the regime. Citizens who once chanted "Death to America" now call for the blood of Ayatollah Khamenei.

This is encouraging news, but autocrats learn from each other and from history how to hold onto power. Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin sees not a great reformer in Mikhail Gorbachev but a leader who was too weak to hold the Soviet Union together. Others have learned from China's Tiananmen crackdown the value of brutal force. So it is interesting that in the midst of the upheaval in Iran, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made a trip to the Kremlin.

Mr. Putin has a great deal riding on the outcome in Iran. With the Russian economy teetering, he needs a steep increase in oil prices to stave off the collapse of his government. So he has been working to increase tension in the Middle East and now sees the Iranian crisis as potentially helpful -- if Ahmadinejad comes out on top.

According to industry analysts, Iran could produce up to four million more barrels of oil per day if foreign companies were allowed to modernize the country's oil infrastructure. Rapidly increasing Iran's oil output would likely force oil prices to fall. However, if Ahmadinejad retains power, foreign companies aren't likely to be invited in and Israel may well feel compelled to attack Iran's nuclear sites, which will likely drive up energy prices.

After watching the Iranian regime murder its own people in cold blood, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will not be able to tell his people that they won't face an existential threat if Iran acquires nuclear weapons. The Ahmadinejad government has also lost its moral legitimacy and is therefore more likely to support a proxy war against Israel through Hamas and Hezbollah in hopes of uniting its people against a foreign enemy.

For Mr. Putin, the unknown factor in all of this is how the West will respond to what's happening in Iran. It could give him pause if Iran faces penalties of real significance for using lethal force against nonviolent protestors. Surprisingly, European leaders are showing unusual assertiveness in condemning the Iranian regime.

But what has been flagging so far has been leadership from the United States. Only in his second statement, a week into the crisis, did President Barack Obama underscore the importance of nonviolence, though he still declined to support the Iranian protestors. I understand the reluctance to provide Iranian leaders with the opportunity to smear the protestors as American stooges. But can the leader of the Free World find nothing more intimidating than bearing witness when it is clear that the regime doesn't care who is watching?

Sen. Richard Lugar (R., Ind.) and Fareed Zakaria on CNN, among others, have defended Mr. Obama's extreme caution. Mr. Zakaria even compared the president's actions to how George H.W. Bush responded timidly to the impending collapse of the Soviet Union and its hold on Eastern Europe in 1989. Mr. Zakaria explained, "Those regimes could easily crack down on the protestors and the Soviet Union could send in tanks." True. But the Soviet Union used tanks to quash dissent when it could. Dictatorships use force when they can get away with it, not when a U.S. president makes a strong statement.

President Dwight Eisenhower might have learned that lesson in 1956 when he said nothing and the Soviets sent tanks into Budapest anyway. Likewise, in 1968 the Soviets cracked down in Czechoslovakia even though the West said little. Regardless of what Mr. Obama says, the Iranian leaders will use all the force at their disposal to stay in power.

There is no reason to withhold external pressure that can tip the balance inside Tehran. Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi is not an ideal democrat. But should he and his supporters win power they will owe their authority to an abruptly empowered Iranian electorate. It is reasonable to expect that the people will hold a Mousavi government accountable for delivering the freedoms that they are now risking their lives to attain.

Millions of Iranians are fighting to join the Free World. The least we can do is let the valiant people of Iran know loud and clear that they will be welcomed with open arms.

8 comments:

Unknown said...

The more the Ahmadinejad government keeps oil production low through its xenophobia the more Iran will suffer as oil travels through its last quarter century as the dominant source of energy for powering machines. One should in the words of an old American agricultural aphorism,"Make hay while the sun shines."

Anonymous said...

Kasparov says it all, take care protesters and courage

Anonymous said...

Kasparov is just a miserable zionist stoodge who ALWAYS supports the oppression of the people of Palestine and ALWAYS speaks AGAINST the Palestinian resistance. And the so called " green revolution" in Iran is sponsored and supported by Kasparov's paymasters. As we speak the zionists in Palestine routinely shoot Palestinian civilians and destroy their homes and Kasparov welcomes it.
And as far as the "green revolutionaries" in the streets of Tehran are concerned I wonder why the police in Iran are so lenient?
They should learn from their colleagues in New York, Paris and other Western capitals capitals how to deal with "unauthorised" demonstrations, using not only clubs but electric discharges as well. What does Kasparov think about that? The answer is obvious

Anonymous said...

The commentator above is deluded regarding Israeli sponsorship of the Iranian 'green resistance'. One wonders what advantage is to be gained in denying the fact that the resisitance IS a spontaneous 'grassroots' movement driven by the majority of the Iranian people's collective desire to overcome the state-sponsored oppression of the Iranian regime. Perhaps it is because the 'green resistance' in Iran has not contained itself within the parameters of a 'pure' Islamist revolutionary agenda; rather, it is exhibiting the hallmarks of a truely democratic movement that properly seeks to establish the unfettered will of the people, and their attendant rights, as the foundation of the Republic of Iran.

Anonymous said...

Correcton to my comment above; should read, "...state-sponsored oppression *by* Iranian regime"... (in case that was not apparent to some readers)

Anonymous said...

"the state-sponsored oppression of the Iranian regime."

The commentator above is deeply deluded if he/she believes there is no "state-sponsored oppression" in countries like e.g. the US. There is, there is and much worse than in Iran. Just try and do in the streets of New York some of the things people do in the streets of Tehran and you'll see what happens to you.

yanmaneee said...

off white hoodie
off white shoes
balenciaga speed
adidas gazelle
off white
coach factory outlet
nike vapormax
coach factory outlet
kyrie 5 shoes
kyrie 4 shoes

teytheigh said...

o8r56d9l15 p0g58a5t86 q4q36p7y22 m2d93s1g44 h3l30s2d98 h9m32c2q35

 
[Valid RSS]