Not surprisingly, the party out of power is criticizing the President of the other party. The assertion in this case is that our President is being to “timid” in his response to the situation in Iran. Criticism of the President by the opposition is not shocking; indeed, it’s almost guaranteed.
But this is my question: What do Republicans think a “strong” response on the situation in Iran is going to achieve?
For decades now, the relations between Iran and the U.S. have been miserable. For the Iranians, we are the country that assassinated their leader, propped up the Shah, aided their war-time enemy, shot down their civilian aircraft, etc. For the U.S., Iran is the country that held our citizens hostage for no good reason, brokers demonstrably terrorist groups in the Middle East, is attempting to obtain nuclear weapons, and generally attempts to stir up crap about us whenever it can. The President thinks this can be changed. He wants to start engaging Iran in diplomacy. He fears that the current situation can sabotage that desire if Iran’s ruling hierarchy gets offended by what they perceive are efforts to affect their internal situation.
So what do Republicans think will be achieved by issuing strong condemnations of the actions of the Iranian government to the protests? How do they think this will make things better between our nations? What do they think the effect of such condemnations will be in Iran? How do they see such actions affecting the world’s opinion of us, or the situation?
Because I’m having trouble seeing strong condemnation as doing anything other than antagonizing the leaders of Iran, while at the same time confirming the opinion of the world that we don’t know what we are doing…
For some, I expect that the former is what they want, and they don’t care about the latter. The Republicans are big on bogeymen. And quite a few of the others are simply thugs at heart. The only solution they have to any problem is to “GET TOUGH !”
I don’t see this as anything but standard political gamesmanship. There is no good plan for getting involved in this, yet Republicans can hurl that invective precisely because they can’t do anything about it anyway.
I don’t think the Republicans have any idea what to do in Iran, they just think they have to make it seem like the Democrats don’t have any idea what to do.
Republicans will complain about absolutely every single thing Obama does, whether they have a better plan or not is completely irrelevant. Complaining about everything from Obama going on a date with Michele to his response to the Iran election and hoping something, ANYTHING, sticks is all they have left.
Achieve in Iran, or the Middle East? Doesn’t matter; that’s not the purpose.
This rhetoric, like so much of the Iranian rhetoric it opposes, is meant for *internal *audiences. What the Republicans are trying to achieve is to reinforce their image among *American voters *for being tough on terrorism and such.
Well, they’ve certainly reinforced their image among me vis-a-vis Iran. . . .
In addition to the domestic consumption aspect, I have a feeling that it would tickle the Republican PTBs if Iran could be goaded into some harebrained action (such as the seizure of a British boat and crew a few years back) that would give the US a putative casus belli for retaliation — in which case they would be able to slam Obama whatever he did. If there was a military response, the comeback would be that there was no exit strategy; anything else would elicit cries of “soft on terror!”
Color me crazy, but wouldn’t it seem more prudent to just let Iran self-destruct?
I mean, here we are over in the west watching them pitch the fit of the century - pointedly *not *meddling - and it’s looking more and more like a revolution is in the works. Why would we want to stick our big fat faces in it and fuck it up?
Who says Republicans think they can achieve something in Iran? John McCain said recently that there “may not be any options” to effect change in Iran. No cite, I heard it on NPR. What do Democrats think they can achieve in Iran?
Iran will blame the US regardless of what happens. They can not accept that they have flaws, because god is on their side. We fomented this. How else could it be?
I don’t get this question. The point to the OP (as far as I can tell) is that stirring up more shit in Iran, as the Republicans are demanding, is probably not that great an idea. So I suppose the answer to the question, “What do Democrats hope to acheive by not stirring up more shit?” is … to not stir up more shit. Pretty cut and dried if you ask me.
Remember when some idiots said they would vote for Bush just because someone in France said they liked Kerry better?
America’s condemnation of Iran’s government would only reinforce it because many people in Iran who do not care for that government care even less about America. It is just human nature. Nobody wants outsiders meddling in their affairs.
That Republicans do not understand this shows they do not understand something very basic about human nature.
The Republicans have principals you know, stand up and fight for whats right regardless of the consequences, nuance and pragmatic reason is for chumps, a leader must be bold and decisive, we need a decider, someone to make tough calls and commit our nation to action because inaction is unacceptable and erodes democracy and theres flag waving and patriots and 9/11 and rockets red blare…
In a word, ‘jingoism’.
If the result of these protests are bad, the GOP will blame Obama for not being tougher, if he speaks out against the Ayatollah and the result is bad, well that’s what you get when you have a Democrat in charge of foreign policy.
It would presumably establish a ‘side’ for the US, ie the protesters. If that side ‘wins’, there would be some good will established. See 1979 in reverse.
Their experience with that is highlighted by our assassination of the democratically-elected Mossadegh, our longtime support of the Shah and his secret police, and our more-recent destruction of their neighboring country. They’re entitled to a little skepticism of any such claim from us, aren’t they?