Head of Iran's Nuclear Agency, Mousavi Backer, Resigned in June

From Associated Press
July 16, 2009

TEHRAN, Iran — The head of Iran's nuclear agency has resigned, an Iranian news agency reported Thursday, a move that may have been connected to the country's postelection turmoil.

Gholam Reza Aghazadeh gave no reason for his resignation, according the semi-official ISNA news agency. But Aghazadeh has long been close to opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, who claims to be the victor in June 12 presidential elections and says the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is illegitimate.

Aghazadeh is quoted as telling ISNA that he submitted his resignation from Iran's Atomic Energy Organization 20 days ago to Ahmadinejad, who accepted it. In the ISNA report Thursday, Aghazadeh says he also resigned from his other post, as one of Ahmadinejad's vice presidents.

Aghazadeh and other nuclear officials could not immediately be reached for comment. ISNA is a semi-official news agency, but Iranian officials use it occasionally to leak sensitive information.

In his post, which he held for 12 years, Aghazadeh has pushed steadily ahead with Iran's nuclear program, which the West fears is aimed at developing a nuclear weapon. Iran denies that charge, saying it wants only to generate electricity, and it rejects U.N. demands it halt uranium enrichment.

Aghazadeh in the past year has announced several times Iran's advances in manufacturing centrifuges, a key component of the enrichment program. According to the U.N. nuclear watchdog, Iran has nearly 5,000 centrifuges currently enriching uranium and another 2,000 others ready to start enriching.

AP notes that Aghazadeh was not included in Iran's negotiations with the West over the nuclear program and that "ultimately all decisions on nuclear policy lie with supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei."

And, it would appear, one more piece of deadwood has been cleared off the deck.

U2 Homage to Iranian Freedom Fighters

Hat Tip: Gateway Pundit


And I personally dedicate this song to Neda, whom we now know, as per Pastorius, was a good Christian!!!

News Out Of Iran Intensifying: Basij Carry Out Nighttime Raids On Homes - Mousavi Attacks Khameini

It seems the news out of Iran is intensifying, not dying out.

From KRSI:

Human Rights Watch has accused Iran's volunteer Basij militia of carrying out night-time raids, destroying property in private homes and beating civilians. The New York-based group says the raids are an attempt to stop the nightly rooftop chants against the government. It also says satellite dishes are being confiscated to stop people from watching foreign news. "Witnesses are telling us that the Basijis are trashing entire streets and even neighbourhoods as well as individual homes trying to stop the nightly rooftop protest chants," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director, in a statement posted on the group's website. Videos have also been posted on the internet of the aftermath of the raids, showing damage to satellite dishes. A man interviewed on the video - which the BBC did not shoot, but which appears to be authentic - said he could not complain to the police because they too were involved in the violence.

The rooftop protests were detailed in the London Times the other day. At 10:00 PM nightly, the Iranian people are going out onto their rooftops and howling Allahu Akbar, as a means of not only protesting, but of reaching out to each other in solidarity and encouragement.

This is being called, "The Wailing of the Wolves", and these protests are gathering force as the evening pass:

At about 9pm each day Nushin, a young housewife, performs the same curious ritual. She climbs up the stairs to the roof of her Tehran home and begins shouting into the night. Allahu akbar,” she cries, and sometimes “Death to the dictator”.

She is not alone. Across the darkened city, from rooftops and through open windows, thousands of others do the same to form one great chorus of protest — a collective wail of anger against a reviled regime that no amount of riot police and Basiji militia can stop. “It sounds like the wailing of wolves,” said one Tehrani.

And each night, as the street demonstrations are crushed with overwhelming force and the regime cracks down on all other forms of dissent, it grows steadily louder and more insistent, not just in Tehran but in other densely populated cities of the Islamic Republic.

“It’s the way we reassure ourselves that we are still here and we are still together,” says Nushin, a woman who has never dared to rebel before.

“This is what people did before the revolution and I hope it warns the regime about what could happen if it doesn’t change its way.

“And because I’m a religious person the sound resonating in the neighbourhood makes me feel better. Even my little daughter joins me, and I can see how she feels that she is part of something bigger. It is our unique way of civil disobedience and what’s interesting is that it increases every time they do something that makes people angrier.”

One has to wonder if the Wailing of the Wolves is also emboldening Mousavi, who had, in past days, been strangely silent. Today, he is openly criticizing the unassailable Ayatollah Khameini:

After days of quiet, opposition presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi launched a broadside against the Iranian leadership in comments published yesterday, suggesting that the political rift over Iran's disputed presidential election is not over. The former prime minister accused Iran's supreme leader of not acting in the interests of the country. He slammed state-controlled broadcast outlets, which have intensified a media blitz against him and his backers with allegations that the unrest over the June 12 vote was instigated by foreign countries. And he vowed to pursue his quest to have President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's reelection nullified. "I am not only prepared to respond to all these allegations but am ready to show how election fraudsters joined those who are truly behind the recent riots and shed the blood of people," he said in comments that appeared on his Web site and were distributed to supporters via e-mail. "I am not prepared to give up under the pressure of threats." Mousavi's forceful remarks appeared to show that he was willing to risk his standing as a pillar of the Islamic Republic to take on Iran's powerful leadership, including the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Khamenei may be a casualty in vote crisis

Yahoo:

Iran's Khamenei may be a casualty in vote crisis
By HAMZA HENDAWI, Associated Press Writer
Wed Jun 24, 8:13 am ET

CAIRO – Just a few weeks ago, they would have been virtually unthinkable acts of defiance in Iran: standing up to the supreme leader, ignoring his warnings to stay off the streets — then chanting for his death.

But the boisterous opposition protests thrusting Iran into its worst civil unrest since the 1979 Islamic Revolution have broken the taboo against direct criticism of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Now some are talking about him as a casualty of the crisis — and wondering if the aloof cleric's powerful office will survive after his eventual death.

For two decades, Khamenei's word has been law in Iran, where the supreme leader is considered by some as God's representative on Earth. Today he is reviled, not revered, by thousands of supporters of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, who claims he was defrauded in the June 12 presidential elections.

Unprecedented chants of "Death to Khamenei!" by some protesters underscore an astonishing blow to the 70-year-old cleric's standing.

"The election dispute may further erode his religious and political authority, especially among the traditional clergy, leaving him even more dependent on the Revolutionary Guard," Iran's most powerful and feared security force, said Ali Nader, an Iran expert with the RAND Corp.

Khamenei, to be sure, has spent years meticulously cultivating support in the powerful military and judiciary, and that could mean he remains secure in the country's top job.

Khamenei quickly endorsed the results of the disputed election, which gave a landslide victory to his ally, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Militiamen loyal to Khamenei used lethal violence to crush street protests, one day after he warned in a nationally televised Friday sermon of bloodshed if opposition demonstrations continued.

On Wednesday, he vowed his government would not give in to pressure over the election, effectively closing the door to any compromise with the opposition.

"On the current situation, I was insisting and will insist on implementation of the law. That means, we will not go one step beyond the law," Khamenei said on state television, using language that indicated he was referring to domestic pressures. "For sure, neither the system nor the people will give in to pressures at any price."

His handling of the crisis and his support for the hard-line Ahmadinejad emboldened protesters to ignore his warning. And at the high echelons of the ruling elite, his actions have tempted two former presidents — reformist Mohammad Khatami and powerful insider Hashemi Rafsanjani — to come out in sympathy with the protesters, dealing another blow to Khamenei's standing.

Questioning the judgment and actions of a leader is not at all unusual in democracies, but it is a very serious step in Iran, where the supreme leader traditionally is a revered patriarchal figure whose followers wait on his every word.

But Khamenei has lost face. That has weakened him and is likely to prompt questions about his leadership for years to come.

Removing him from office may be difficult — though by no means impossible — but he may never live down what is widely seen among Iranians as the divisive role he played in a crisis in which a father-of-the-nation role was expected from him.

Additionally, there are no obvious successors at present to Khamenei.

Iran's crisis began when Mousavi, a former prime minister who served under Khamenei when the latter was president in the 1980s, charged that Ahmadinejad was re-elected through widespread fraud. Mousavi has demanded a new election, an option Khamenei has flatly rejected.

Experts say Khamenei's actions could revive a long-stewing debate on whether he had the proper scholarly credentials to assume the land's highest office back in 1989. The Council of Experts, a powerful clerical body, has the authority to remove the supreme leader, but such a move could plunge the country into turmoil unless agreed in advance with the nation's military and judiciary.

Khamenei's handling of the election crisis also could bring to the fore another simmering argument among senior clerics on whether Iran, 30 years after the Islamic revolution, still needs a supreme leader.

However, doing away with the job would need a change in the constitution, something that may not be easily attainable giving the factional nature of Iran's political establishment.

Rafsanjani has not taken a major public role in the post-election meltdown, leading to suspicions that he is working behind the scenes with other powerful clerics who could be troubled by Khamenei's handling of the crisis.

"Rafsanjani has succeeded in knocking the supreme leader off his pedestal by revealing Ayatollah Khamenei to be a political partisan rather than an above-the-fray spiritual leader. In other words, the supreme leader has become a divider, not a uniter," said a report by EurasiaNet, a group operated by the Open Society Institute of George Soros.

Frederic Tellier, an Iran expert with the Brussels-based International Crisis Group think tank, believes removing Khamenei from office is unlikely given the balance of power in Iran.

But Tellier won't rule out a change in the system when Khamenei is gone.

"After Khamenei, the possibility of a joint leadership looks more credible and a way to preserve the balance between the factions and diverse sensitivities of the Islamic Republic," he said.

Like his predecessor, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini — the father of the 1979 revolution — Khamenei came to his position under the doctrine of Welayet-al-Faqeeh: the right of the most learned to rule the nation. However, the doctrine is not universally accepted by Shiite clerics in Iran, and Khamenei himself was not a senior-enough cleric to get the job.

Those opposed to the doctrine are mostly senior clerics of the "quietest" school, which opposes the involvement in politics by the clergy and advocates that they remain above the fray as the people's spiritual guides. However, most of Iran's younger clerics have grown with the Welayet-al-Faqeeh doctrine and know no other.

Khamenei has spent years building a power base in the armed forces and the powerful Revolutionary Guard, a paramilitary force that operates as the regime's chief protector. His authority has not rested on the religious credentials he is supposed to have as a supreme leader.

That means that what Khamenei lacks in charisma and scholarly pedigree, he makes up for with support in powerful institutions.

"Khamenei inherited the position with little religious justification and scholarship and limited prestige," said Anthony Cordesman, a Middle East expert with the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. "He lives largely on a mixture of the impact Khomeini had, the support of other leaders in the government, and the power over the security forces."

Challenging the supreme leader openly is not unheard of in Iran, but those who dared do it paid a high price.

Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, a leader of the revolution who was once tipped as Khomeini's successor, fell out with the ruling clergy in 1989 over his advocacy for civil and human rights. He has been sidelined since, living in the holy city of Qom — sometimes under house arrest — but that did not stop him from openly criticizing Ahmadinejad.

Washington Times: Obama Wrote to Iran's Khamenei Before Election

The Washington Times is reporting that prior to this month's elections in Iran, Obama wrote to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

By Barabara Slavin
Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Prior to this month's disputed presidential election in Iran, the Obama administration sent a letter to the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, calling for an improvement in relations, according to interviews and the leader himself.

Ayatollah Khamenei confirmed the letter toward the end of a lengthy sermon last week, in which he accused the United States of fomenting protests in his country in the aftermath of the disputed June 12 presidential election.

U.S. officials declined to discuss the letter on Tuesday, a day in which President Obama gave his strongest condemnation yet of the Iranian crackdown against protesters.

An Iranian with knowledge of the overture, however, told The Washington Times that the letter was sent between May 4 and May 10 and laid out the prospect of "cooperation in regional and bilateral relations" and a resolution of the dispute over Iran's nuclear program.

The Iranian, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the topic, said the letter was given to the Iranian Foreign Ministry by a representative of the Swiss Embassy, which represents U.S. interests in Iran in the absence of U.S.-Iran diplomatic relations. The letter was then delivered to the office of Ayatollah Khamenei, he said.

The letter was sent before the election, whose outcome - delivering a supposed landslide to incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - has touched off the biggest anti-government protests in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The Obama administration, while criticizing a violent crackdown on demonstrators by Iranian security forces, has said that it will continue efforts to engage the Iranian government about its nuclear program and other issues touching on U.S. national security...


In a lengthy sermon Friday that reaffirmed the disputed re-election of Mr. Ahmadinejad, Ayatollah Khamenei made an oblique reference to a letter from the U.S. but embedded the reference in a diatribe against purported U.S. interference in Iranian affairs.

"The American president was quoted as saying that he expected the people of Iran to take to the streets," Ayatollah Khamenei misquoted Mr. Obama as saying, according to a translation by Mideastwire.com.

"On the one hand, they [the Obama administration] write a letter to us to express their respect for the Islamic Republic and for re-establishment of ties, and on the other hand they make these remarks. Which one of these remarks are we supposed to believe? Inside the country, their agents were activated. Vandalism started. Sabotaging and setting fires on the streets started. Some shops were looted. They wanted to create chaos. Public security was violated. The violators are not the public or the supporters of the candidates. They are the ill-wishers, mercenaries and agents of the Western intelligence services and the Zionists."

Read the rest at the WT.

No wonder getting Obambi to denounce the attacks on protestors was like pulling teeth. Assuming revolution does not happen and the election stands, will he follow up on the contacts proposed in that letter anyway? And what position will Khamenei, Ahmadinejad and the rest be able to assume in those circumstances? If K&A planned for this rigged election to act as the starting bell for the all-out race to nuclear capability, did the track just get faster or sloppier?

I-Report Leaks Ahmadinejad Requesting Council Implement "Pure Islamic State"

From the Jawa Report:

Via CNN's I-Report:

IF YOU CANNOT SPEAK PERSIAN, PLEASE TWITTER AND RESEND THIS TO OTHERS THIS NEEDS TO BE SEEN BY THE WHOLE WORLD

DISCLAIMER:this video was sent to me from Iran which has video proof of ahmadinejad proposing to change the islamic republic system in IRan at the moment to chane it to a dictatorship where people do not have the right to vote. The Voter Fraud of June 12 is a direct result of this proposition. PLEASE RT

PLEASE USE YOUR FARSI TRANSLATORS TO VERIFY THIS.

I became aware of the vid after Allahpundit posted a request for a translattion via twitter. I then emailed several of Jawa's helpers asking for a translation. I have a summary translation below the fold and also here at Sevenload. It appears the video was taken shortly after Ahmadinejad's was elected to his first term of office.

Update: Allahpundit has his take on this here at Hot Air.

It’s impossible to tell if this is Dinnerjacket’s standard nutty boilerplate about the Islamic paradise eventually conquering the world or if he’s talking about a more specific “plan” for hardliners to assert themselves in Iran....

This is a summary transcript of the conversation that took place between Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi and others in Qom immediately after the elections (23/3/88 Persian calendar).

Apparently Mesbah Yazdi has spoken and it is Ahmadinejad’s turn to speak.

He thanks the audience with common Arabic courtesies:

Ahmadinejad humbly requests that special attention be paid to what he is to say which is about starting pure Islamic rule, not only in Iran but all over the world. He said we had a set back because we were not doing our Islamic duty to pressure people be more enlightened with Mohammadan Islam.

Islamic rule should not and cannot be limited only to Iran. Our efforts to expand it throughout the world are soon to be materialized with the help from God.

Struggle against corruption is of course enjoyable, but the ultimate joy will be the time when we realize the final heart-desired aim. We are always at work to realize that ultimate objective. I believe that revolution is beginning to find its way and a renewed evolution is taking place in it.

The revolution was hard and, began with difficulty, and the road ahead is even harder and more difficult. But this difficult road is exactly what to be expected.

There is enormous energy which has started within the country and is serving the country and is expanding, but needs guidance and supervision/management.

All the things that we have planned and talked about, is becoming a reality.

This plan needs strong ideological and operational support from you. The best place to start it is right here and in front of you. Who have the foresight, passion, experience and fortitude to ensure that it takes shape and becomes a reality.

I think timing is right, all necessary arrangements have been made. I seek your support and help. I am almost nobody compared to you in this struggle, in this grand movement. This is a blessing and is the beginning of a grand evolution in the world. I think this can become a reality. And building Iran as an example for others to follow and be a witness to on the road to realize the grand Islam.

It is possible to accomplish this, otherwise I would not be here sitting with you. Tehran is ready; the university is working on implementing it. Everything is taken care of in Tehran; we need your endorsement and approval.

Our translator also added this commentary and some of his opinions to provide us with some additional context.

We also notice that he spoke more with codes. My Persian friend's interpretation is that he was preparing everyone for all out Nuclear war. I asked him to give me his own interpretation late this evening. My own feeling is in the next two weeks, they will do something huge, perhaps a nuclear test to divert the attention. Remember, Ahmadinejad wants to create a situation to sever that Mehdi to appear and make the world straight. At the moment, they are like wounded snakes with nothing to lose. I think the world should be prepared. He and Khameni are getting ready to a major Bing Bang: Here is Ahmadinejad way of thinking:

To understand Ahmadinejad’s mind set and behavior requires a close scrutiny of the elaborate and intricate theology of Hujetieh Shiism – perhaps the most fundamentalist of numerous Shiite sects.

For our purposes, however, it is sufficient to document the fact that Ahmadinejad is not unhinged. “Unhinged” is a derogatory term for a person who is mentally disturbed. A prominent feature of a mentally disturbed person is the display of contradictory thoughts and behavior. Ahmadinejad’s words, deeds and beliefs show a fully hinged person. He, to the perception of many, may be hinged to a dangerous and faulty hinge. Yet he is hinged.

There is a full internal consistency in Ahmadinejad. Below are a few examples of his sayings, beliefs and actions. Whether one agrees or disagrees with them, they all fit perfectly into a consistent pattern.

▪ He literally believes in the imminent emergence of the Mahdi – the Shiites promised one who is expected to appear to set aright a decadent and wretched world.

▪ He views himself as the vassal of Mahdi, working for him and being accountable to him.

▪ His main task is to prepare the world so to hasten the Mahdi’s coming. If this preparation requires much destruction and bloodshed, so be it.

▪ As a former mayor of Tehran, he developed elaborate detailed plans preparing the city for the arrival of the Mahdi.

▪ He allocated generous sums for extensive road improvement to a mosque at Jamkaaraan near the city of Qum where it is believed the promised Mahdi is hiding in a well since the age of nine over 1100 years ago.

▪ He reportedly visits the well frequently and drops his written supplications into the well for the hidden Mahdi to act upon them.

▪ He has said in private that it was him who asked the Mahdi to inflict the massive stroke on Ariel Sharon.

▪ He sees the Jews as the sworn enemies of Islam. The hostility dates back to the time of Muhammad’s own treatment of the Jews in Medina. At first, expediently, Muhammad called the Jews “people of the book,” and accorded them a measure of tolerance until he gained enough power to unleash his devastating wrath on them.

▪ He says that the Holocaust is a myth. He is, in this respect, in good company with a number of other revisionist claimants.

▪ He wants Israel to be wiped out of the map or transferred to Europe.

▪ In his speech at the UN general assembly, he implored the Mahdi to come and save the world. He claimed that during his speech of some twenty odd minutes, a powerful light enveloped him and all participants were held transfixed unable to move their eyes.

▪ He believes that the earth is Allah’s and all people must either become believers of his brand of Islam or must perish as infidels najis (unclean) who by their very presence defile Allah’s earth.

▪ He believes that this earthly life is passing and worthless in comparison to the afterlife awaiting a devoted and faithful believer. Hence, he holds to the old belief that if a faithful kills and infidel, he goes to Allah’s paradise; and, if the faithful gets killed in the process of serving the faith, again he goes to Allah’s paradise. Hence, it is a win-win proposition for the faithful.

There is nothing “unhinged” about Ahamadinejad’s thinking, statements and actions. They are internally consistent. He is simply a fanatic who is wedded to an extremely dangerous exclusionary system of belief. Humanity must learn that dismissing a fanatic as lunatic or unhinged rather than squarely facing the likes of Ahmadinejad and Hitler will result in great suffering. And in the age of Weapons of Mass Destruction a man with huge sums of petrodollar can indeed serve as the catalyst of total annihilation. It is by far more prudent to err on the side of being an alarmist than a complacent dismissive. Humanity cannot afford to ignore the emergence of the final thereat to its very existence on this planet.

Also here's a .pdf of the Farsi or Persian working transcript for those of you who can read that sort of thing.

Download file

We have requested more translations from others to compare to these and I expect our source may release a more detailed English transcript. He called it a summary which I take to mean some of it is paraphrased. I will update if/when needed.

The End Of Islamic Theocracy In Iran?

From this op-ed in the New York Times:

June 21, 2009

The Koran and the Ballot Box

By REUEL MARC GERECHT

Prague

WHATEVER happens in Iran in the aftermath of this month’s fraudulent elections, one thing is clear: we are witnessing not just a fascinating power struggle among men who’ve known each other intimately for 30 years, but the unraveling of the religious idea that has shaped the growth of modern Islamic fundamentalism since the creation of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in 1928.

[...]

Westerners would do well to understand the magnitude of what is transpiring in the Islamic Republic. Iran’s revolution shook the Islamic world. It was the first attempt by militant Muslims to prove that “Islam has all the answers” — or at least enough of them to run a modern state and make its citizenry more moral children of God. But the experiment has failed....

[...]

Even if Ayatollah Khamenei proves triumphant in this round, the president should get on the right side of history....

Read it all HERE.

Obama Hasn't Seized The Moment

Check out this column in today's Washington Post:

In Tehran, a Moment For Obama to Seize

By Jim Hoagland
Sunday, June 21, 2009

The most serious challenge that Iran's Islamic rulers have ever faced caught President Obama and many European leaders by surprise. Their intelligence agencies did little to prepare them for a national catharsis that pits a combustible mixture of youthful protesters and political opportunists against Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

By threatening and then delivering repression blessed by his religious authority, Khamenei has turned an election dispute into a crisis of legitimacy for a regime that claims to be divinely inspired. Obama's decision to stay out of the limelight is paying off by keeping the focus on those who cheat and maim Iranians.

But the president and his advisers still have not adjusted policies and tactics being overtaken by events. This is clear both from the initial "caught in the headlights" reaction by Obama as he temporized -- albeit with steely skill -- and from accounts of diplomatic and other official sources here.

The administration's words suggest Obama is caught in a political version of the theory of relativity -- that he moves along a predetermined course that prevents him from seeing the new situation in Tehran exactly as it occurs. He clings to the pre-election paramount goal of keeping alive the chances for a nuclear deal with any government in Tehran.

Focusing now, and narrowly, on obtaining the highly improbable nuclear accord neglects the moral and historical dimensions of mass protest in authoritarian societies such as Iran's that are vulnerable to new communications technology. Such moments release a moral energy in once-submissive populations that rulers must crush, accommodate or yield to. Whatever their ultimate choice -- crushing is clearly the initial one -- the ayatollahs will never be the same.

This is not to underestimate the difficulties Obama faces, as do John McCain and other critics who accuse the president of passively accepting what Iranian dissidents rightly call President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's "coup."

But Obama should not have blurted out the (accurate) observation that challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi would probably not change Ahmadinejad's foreign and nuclear policies. This is the kind of assessment that intelligence chiefs whisper to their bosses to explain that their missed call doesn't really matter much.

Yes, Mousavi is a man of the Islamic establishment who has brutally put down dissent himself and is a bit of an opportunist. But if he, and his clerical allies, were unexpectedly to overcome both Ahmadinejad's coup and Khamenei's crackdown, those who have been in the streets would hold the new government to different, higher standards of governance and engagement with the world. Mousavi might well disappoint them. But he would then have to deal with this newly politicized population.

Judged by what they have -- and have not -- said publicly, Obama policymakers seem to underestimate the sense of empowerment that the demonstrations -- and the world's watching their struggle via cellphone video and YouTube -- inevitably create for the protesters, especially among the young.

The experience of witnessing three very different citizens' uprisings in the 1980s leads me to that expectation. I saw the "people power" movement sweep aside the Marcos regime in Manila and Solidarity emerge from nothing to whittle away Polish communist rule and the Soviet empire. The euphoria of empowerment can also quickly turn to horror, as it did in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1989.

But what remains -- even from Tiananmen -- are the scenes of heroism and the acknowledgment of a population's common humanity that rise from revolts for more dignity and freedom. To see a Chinese worker throw his bicycle -- a necessary and expensive possession in that day -- beneath a truck to block troops from attacking students is unforgettable. So is witnessing a parade by diplomats from the Chinese Foreign Ministry backing the demonstrations.

And if I have not forgotten it, neither have the Chinese people. They were changed by these events, even if their cause was suppressed by their communist rulers -- and then dishonored by the acquiescence of the first Bush administration in Deng Xiaoping's actions.

Morality as a factor in foreign policy has taken a beating recently, due in part to George W. Bush's sanctimonious exploitation of it. But ignoring its place altogether is also a mistake. Yes, it is not the American president's prerogative to meddle in Iran's protests. But neither should he prejudge or minimize the sacrifices that Iranian protesters choose to make in hopes of a better life.

Note paragraphs two and three, both of which say that BHO is not adjusting as he should.

I submit that BHO is in the throes of perseveration. Definition of perseveration:

# Psychology

1. Uncontrollable repetition of a particular response, such as a word, phrase, or gesture, despite the absence or cessation of a stimulus, usually caused by brain injury or other organic disorder.

2. The tendency to continue or repeat an act or activity after the cessation of the original stimulus.

STAND WITH INFIDEL BLOGGERS AS WE STAND WITH THE IRANIAN PEOPLE AGAINST THE MULLAHS!

Your president won't do it. But you can. Help crush the regime of the

Mullahs.

Help the Iranian People. Participate in the Iranian revolt. Click HERE to carry you to the original post where you can join in and directly aid in the fight against the very people who call us The Great Satan and would wish our destruction as well.

Ace: According to niac crowds are chanting

“I welcome death I welcome death But not subjugation But Not subjugation”

from NIAC -- MUCH more there

4:27 pm: Moussavi’s open letter to the people of Iran. Released tonight at 9:21pm. It states that he stands with the people to protect the original aims of the revolution to reach human rights and democracy. He states that what they got instead was fraud, injustice, torture and lies. He states why he will not stand down and why all the security forces of Iran are brothers and sisters that should support the nation. He says the body charged with investigating the elections is not a neutral body. He calls on authorities to pull the security forces and Basij out of the streets and allow the people’s voices to be heard peacefully. The full letter in Farsi can be found here.

4:13 pm: According to Moussavi’s Facebook page, the police are pouring acid on the demonstrators.

3:59 pm: Washington DC- The most diverse and largest crowd of Iranian Americans came out to show their solidarity for the Iranian people. Old and young generations of Iranian Americans joined forces to stand up against the violence in Iran. The 600 or so people that started at the Iranian Interest Section walked to the White House echoing the chanting “Where is my vote?” and “Stop the killing! Stop the Coup! Free Iran! Free Iran!” Everyone was instructed not to bring flags as to keep people from promoting their own political agendas.

However, before the mass of protesters reached the White House, there was already a group of 12 people from the MKO, whose flags outnumbered them and were chanting, “Death to the Islamic Republic.” However, they were quickly silenced and left the scene when the overwhelming larger group arrived.

2:45 pm: From a contact in Tehran who called and was very shaken up.

“I was out from 4-10pm. Military and Basijis were everywhere. They wouldn’t let anyone go though. Every time there was a group of us, they would shoot us with water guns and disperse all of us. They wouldn’t let us in to where we were supposed to protest.

They had paintball guns which they shot into the crowd and would arrest whoever had a paint mark on them. There was also tear gas everywhere, they would throw it at us and we would throw it back. But it was very dangerous because they all had guns.

I saw a body being carried away. People are afraid to go to the hospital to get treatment for fear of punishment.

Security and police have been confiscating cameras and arresting those who are taking footage. I saw this young guy taking a video and 5 people attacked him and throughout it all he help his hand up with a peace sign- then they arrested him. They have also handcuffed students to the Tehran University fence.

We talk to some normal police and patrolling cops- they are nice and are trying to help people. But it is the Basij and anti-riot [police] that are ruthless. They have been brought in from out of town. There are also many undercover cops.

Also, we don’t watch state media because it takes our hope away. I’m going to go back out, but
my cell phone doesn’t work and I don’t know how I will find people.”

Purportedly A Video From Inside Iran

No way to verify if this is authentic, but I've posted it anyway.

Explosions in Tehran

I picked a great weekend for a little vacation. I don't have much time for posting, so I'm just going to post a few stories that seem important.

From Gateway:

HEAVY CLASHES IN TEHRAN!... Explosions Reported! (Video)

REGIME USING AXES & DAGGERS ON PROTESTERS!
The regime police are blocking Azadi Square and teargassing the protesters--

Iranian police are massing at Azadi Square. (CBS News)

The police are massing at Revolution Square in Tehran.
CTV reported:

Supporters of Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi rallied in Tehran on Saturday, despite a threat by the government to crack down on demonstrators, witnesses reported.

The witnesses told the Associated Press that protesters are holding a number of smaller rallies to demand a new vote after last week's national election gave President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a landslide victory.

Earlier Saturday, fire trucks parked around Revolution Square, while riot police descended on Tehran University, where protesters and security forces have previously clashed.

Police and members of the Basij militia flooded the streets of Tehran.

Iran Press News-- AFP reports from Tehran, Zdshvrsh forces are widely deployed at Revolution Square. The basij forces are preventing the protests and beating the demonstrators.

There were loud protests last night-- the people were on their rooftops screaming out against the regime.

Here is one of the first reports coming from Tehran--
EXPLOSIONS REPORTED:

More video from the streets of Tehran -- Here.

Breaking: Opposition Leaders Mousavi, Khatami and Karoubi Will March Together Saturday In Tehran

Breaking: Opposition leaders Mousavi, Khatami and Karoubi will gather tomorrow at 4:00 PM and march from Enghelab Square to Azadi Square in Tehran for a crucial green protest.
They are defying the regime leader's warning to accept the election results.

On Friday Iran's regime leader Khamenei sternly warned opposition leaders to end street protests or be held responsible for any "bloodshed and chaos" to come.


A protester holds up a photo of the Iranian soccer team wearing green wristbands in support of the opposition. (Mehr News)

Thug contained:

Azarmehr posted this picture of a club wielding thug contained by the noble and courageous people of Iran.

And Obama is doing nothing, of course. He is so doing nothing that even the NYT is taking note.

From the Astute Bloggers:

A WEEK HAS GONE BY AND OBAMA STILL DITHERING ON IRAN

NYTIMES: Obama Reluctant to Toughen Stance on Iran

With Iran on a razor’s edge after a week of swelling protests, the Obama administration has fended off pressure from both parties to respond more forcefully to the disputed election there. But if Iranian authorities carry out their latest threat of a more sweeping crackdown, the White House would reconsider its carefully calibrated tone, officials said Friday.

Administration officials said events this weekend in Tehran — when demonstrators plan to rally in defiance of the authorities — would be a telling indicator of whether President Obama would join European leaders and lawmakers on Capitol Hill in more harshly condemning the tactics of the Iranian government.

REGARDLESS OF THE SUPPOSED REASONS FOR THIS RELUCTANCE... IT SUCKS.

THE POTUS SHOULD BE LEADING THE FREE WORLD, NOT "European leaders and lawmakers on Capitol Hill...".

OBAMA IS A MORAL FAILURE AND A - IN GEOPOLITICAL TERMS - A STRATEGIC AND TACTICAL FAILURE.

IF HE WAS A CRTPTO-MUSLIM WHO WANTED THE MULLAHS TO SUCCEED, WHAT WOULD HE BE DOING DIFFERENTLY?

NOTHING.

THEREFORE, FOR ALL INTENTS AND PURPOSES, OBAMA IS OUR FIRST MUSLIM PRESIDENT - AND THE FIRST TO SUPPORT TYRANNY - A MUSLIM TYRANNY, AND SHARIA - OVER LIBERTY.

Amil Imani's Essay: "Today Everyone Is an Iranian"

In today's American Thinker.

Excerpt:

President Obama's halting comments only made clear his fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the Islamic regime. It appears President Obama is going to betray the Iranian people as Jimmy Carter did 3 decades earlier....

Earlier in the essay, Mr. Imani stated:

It is critical that freedom-loving people, governments and media, rally behind the Iranian people and end the tyrannical mullahcracy that is a scourge on Iran as well as the world. The Iranian people themselves are fully capable and are determined to remove the cancer of Islamism from their country. The United States and Israel and other democracies have a huge stake in the success of the Iranian people to rid themselves of the Islamic oppression and tyranny.

The situation in Iran is dire indeed. Anyone who believes that sane rational people on both sides are engaged in brinkmanship to secure the best advantage, but would eventually work out a compromise, is deluding himself. In some cases, time works as a healer and even as a solution of thorny problems. Yet, this problem will not go away, and time would only make the cataclysmic clash more likely and deadly. The best chance for resolving the impasse is regime change in Iran.

The quotation he cited at the beginning of the essay is worth thinking about, not only with regard to Iran:

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." - John F. Kennedy

Read all of Amil Imani's essay HERE.

Hey Khamenei! That Ain't Your Fucking Muezzin's Adhan You Hear You Sonofabitch!

MSNBC:

Late-night shouts echo through Tehran, even after Khamenei's warning
msnbc.com news services
updated 9:44 p.m. ET, Fri., June 19, 2009

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran's supreme leader sought Friday to end the deepening crisis over disputed elections with one decisive speech — declaring the vote will almost certainly stand and sternly warning opposition leaders to end street protests or be held responsible for any "bloodshed and chaos" to come.

But a first sign of possible resistance came shortly after nightfall in Tehran. Cries of "Death to the dictator!" and "Allahu akbar" — "God is great" — rang from rooftops in what's become a nightly ritual of opposition unity.

The sharp line drawn by Iran's most powerful figure, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is a gambit that pushes Iran's opposition to a pivotal moment: either back down or risk a crushing response from police and the forces at Khamenei's disposal — the powerful Revolutionary Guard and their volunteer citizen militia, the Basij.It also presents important tests for opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi.

He now must examine his willingness to challenge the Islamic leadership he once served as prime minister. There are further questions about his ability to control his own followers, who are waiting for a clear response to Khamenei's edict before a rally planned for Saturday.

Since the June 12 election, Mousavi has become the figurehead for a broad collection of demonstrators — from the most liberal-leaning reformists to religious conservatives — brought together by claims that fraud was behind the landslide re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Some could be prepared to take their protests to the limit. Many others, however, have no interest in an all-out mutiny against the country's Islamic system and know authorities have the tools to strike back without mercy.

the rest here

FoxNews:

Basij Militia Allegedly Use Axes, Daggers to Attack Iranian Protesters
Friday , June 19, 2009

CAIRO —

They're the most feared men on the streets of Iran.

The pro-government Basij militia has held back its full fury during this week's street demonstrations. But witnesses say the force has unleashed its violence in shadowy nighttime raids, attacking suspected opposition sympathizers with axes, daggers, sticks and other crude weapons.

At least once, the militiamen opened fire on a crowd of strone-throwing protesters. State media said seven were killed.

If supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei authorizes a crackdown on protesters calling for a new presidential election, as he warned on Friday, the Basij will almost certainly be out in force.

Formed during the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the Basij became one of Iran's most zealous forces in the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, often leading charges through minefields.

The group, which is controlled by the elite Revolutionary Guard, also was unleashed on dissidents in the 1990s, when teenagers and young men in plainclothes beat protesting students with batons. It's an intimidation tactic opposition supporters say has been revived during this week's outpouring of anti-government protest.

"The Basij began as cannon fodder for the Revolutionary Guard during the war with Iraq. Now, they are there to do the dirty work for them: breaking up parties, hassling women about their hijab (head covering) and much more violent acts," said Meir Javedanfar, an Iranian-born independent analyst living in Israel.

The Basij has leaders based in mosques in every village and city throughout Iran, giving it the widest security network in the country, said Mehdi Khalaji, a senior fellow with The Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a specialist in Iranian politics.

The Iranian government says there are 5 million members in total, but Khalaji told The Associated Press on Friday that active members number around 1 million.

The Revolutionary Guard, a military force that answers to Iran's supreme leader, is considered a strong supporter of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The Basij was used to mobilize support for him in the 2005 election as well as during last week's vote, Khalaji said.

In addition to their salaries, militia members — known as Basijis — get incentives such as easy entrance to universities and licenses and loans for businesses.

The most senior members are issued guns. But the majority use sticks, pepper spray and other crude weapons. "They carry guns, batons and they are driving motorcycles," Khalaji said. "With the motorcycles they go suddenly, they start to drive into the crowd with high speed. They beat people with electric batons."

Some Basijis shave their beards and wear jeans to blend in with opposition supporters, infiltrating a crowd and then attacking, he said.

Amateur videos and photographs from Iran posted online in recent days have shown what appear to be attacks on people and property in cities around Iran carried out by young men wearing ordinary clothing. The images cannot be authenticated because of Iranian government restrictions on the media and telephone and Internet communication in and out of the country.

Khamenei's personal bodyguards, who protect his home and office, control Tehran's Basij force, and his stern warning Friday of a crackdown if protests continue was an unambiguous threat to send the militiamen into the streets, Khalaji said.

Members of the Basij and the Revolutionary Guard were on the streets of Tehran after midday prayers Friday, though not in overwhelming numbers.

So far, the Basij has refrained from widespread attacks on demonstrators. But witnesses say the militiamen took part in a police raid on Tehran University dormitories on Sunday night after students hurled stones, bricks and firebombs at police — one of the few violent episodes during this week's rallies.

Basij members used axes, sticks and daggers to ransack student rooms and smash computers and furniture, wounding many students, according to witnesses.

A day later, students attacked a compound used by the Basij and tried to set it on fire. Gunmen on the roof fired on the crowd and killed seven people, according to state media.

Amateur videos that appear to be from that clash showed men carrying away the wounded on streets spattered with blood as fires burned in the distance and gunfire crackled.

Help Me Out Here! Which is it?

I get so confused these days. Can't tell right from wrong, good from bad, up from down.

Story from non-story.

Well, at least I'm not alone. . .

Atlas Shrugs June 14, 2009:

It's always been the Mullahs
..............

I feel for those terrified souls marching through Tehran blindly acting out in hope that it might effect any change. An exercise in futility. If they value their lives, they will flee the country. We should have backed the reformers and the dissidents years ago when free men had a shot ............. now we are here.

Crowds are protesting at Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's alleged 'rigged' victory. The allegations of fixed elections come after polls showed that half of the electorate wanted Ahmadinejad. But if that is so, if half of the electorate wanted this
bloodthirsty jihadi annihilationist, then what are we talking about?

Bottom line, this is a non story. It's smoke and mirrors. The Mullahs are running the mahdi madhouse, and they have their world agenda. This is nonsense.

But now, today, she seems to have found her way. I wish I had that kind of enlightenment. . .

Atlas Shrugs June 19, 2009

"All hangs in the balance"

Every once in awhile I risk incurring Robert Tracinski's wrath by running his whole column from TIA Daily (which is worth the price of subscription). Today is such a day, because it is so fundamentally important that everyone should read it and send it to their email lists. What is happening in Iran is historic. What started out as an election fracas is obviously so much more. The pity is that we have a pantywaist in the White House, eager to subjugate the US to Islamic interests. Pity that Bush isn't in the White House. This is what he hoped would happen. It did, five minutes too late.

Listen, at IBA it was obvious from the outset that this was no mere dustup, no election fracas. The Iranian people are tired of the boot on their neck, lash on their back, loved ones disappearing into the Hell that is Evin.

From the start we've stood with the Iranians on this. This could be historic of proportions we don't yet fathom but we need to encourage and support them as they grab for freedom. This could be the birth of a new country if they want it and a new dynamic in the mid east if they can keep it.

We've understood that from the start. Thus our wall to wall cheerleading since Sunday. Everyone should be doing the same and good on those who are. And utter shame on our miserable failure of a faux president.

Welcome aboard, Atlas.

"We just turned our backs on freedom. Again. . ."

Ralph Peters in New York Post:

GREEN LIGHT FOR A CRACKDOWN
OBAMA'S SILENCE FAVORS THE MULLAHS
Last updated: 3:30 am
June 18, 2009
Posted: 2:59 am
June 18, 2009

SILENCE is complicity. Our president's refusal to take a forthright moral stand on the side of the Iranian freedom marchers is read in Tehran as a blank check for the current regime.

The fundamentalist junta has begun arresting opposition figures, with regime mouthpieces raising the prospect of the death penalty. Inevitably, there are claims that dissidents have been "hoarding weapons and explosives."

Foreign media reps are under house arrest. Cellphone frequencies are jammed. Students are killed and the killings disavowed.

And our president is "troubled," but doesn't believe we should "meddle" in Iran's internal affairs. (Meddling in Israel's domestic affairs is just fine, though.)

We just turned our backs on freedom.

Again.

Of all our foreign-policy failures in my lifetime, our current shunning of those demanding free elections and expanded civil rights in Iran reminds me most of Hungary in 1956.

For years, we encouraged the Hungarians to rise up against oppression. When they did, we watched from the sidelines as Russian tanks drove over them.

For decades, Washington policymakers from both parties have prodded Iranians to throw off their shackles. Last Friday, millions of Iranians stood up. And we're standing down.

That isn't diplomacy. It's treachery.

Despite absurd claims that Obama's Islam-smooching Cairo speech triggered the calls for freedom in Tehran's streets, these politics are local. But if those partisan claims of the "Cairo Effect" were true, wouldn't our president be obliged to stand beside those he incited?

Too bad for the Iranians, but their outburst of popular anger toward Iran's oppressive government doesn't fit the administration's script -- which is written around negotiations with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

To Obama, his dogmatic commitment to negotiations is infinitely more important than a few million protesters chanting the Farsi equivalent of "We Shall Overcome."

This is madness. There is no chance -- zero, null, nada -- that negotiations with the junta of mullahs will lead to the termination (or even a serious interruption) of Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons. Our president's faith in his powers of persuasion is beginning to look pathological. Is his program of negotiations with apocalypse-minded, woman-hating, Jew-killing fanatics so sacrosanct that he can't acknowledge human cries for freedom?

Is the Rev. Jeremiah Wright a better role model than Martin Luther King? It's a damned shame that our first minority president wasn't a veteran of our civil-rights struggle, rather than its privileged beneficiary.

An ugly pattern's emerging in our president's beliefs:

He's infallible. This is rich, given all the criticism of the Bush administration's unwillingness to admit mistakes. We now have a president with Jimmy Carter's naivete, Richard Nixon's distaste for laws, Lyndon Johnson's commitment to the wrong war, and Bill Clinton's moral fecklessness.

Democracy isn't important. Our president seems infected by yesteryear's Third-World-leftist view that dictatorships are essential to post-colonial development -- especially for Muslims.

Look where Obama has gone and who he supports: the pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia, his groveling speech in Egypt, his embrace of Hamas, his hands-off approach to the gory regime in Sudan -- and now his dismay at the protests in Iran.

Strict Islam is true Islam. This is bewildering, given Obama's childhood exposure to the tolerant Islam practiced in most of Indonesia. The defining remark of his presidency thus far was his Cairo demand for the right of Muslim women to wear Islamic dress in the West -- while remaining silent about their right to reject the hijab, burqa or chador in the Middle East.

History's a blank canvas -- except for America's sins. Of course, we've had presidents who presented the past in the colors they preferred -- but we've never had one who just made it all up.

Obama's ignorance of history is on naked display -- no sense of the brutality of Iran's Islamist regime, of the years of mass imprisonments, diabolical torture, prison rapes, wholesale executions and secret graves that made the shah's reign seem idyllic. Our president seems to regard the Iranian protesters as spoiled brats.

Facts? Who cares? In his Cairo sermon -- a speech that will live in infamy -- our president compared the plight of the Palestinians, the aggressors in 1948, with the Holocaust. He didn't mention the million Jews dispossessed and driven from Muslim lands since 1948, nor the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestinian Christians from the West Bank.

Now our president's attempt to vote "present" yet again green-lights the Iranian regime's determination to face down the demonstrators -- and the mullahs understand it as such.

If we see greater violence in Tehran, the blood of those freedom marchers will be on our president's hands.

Report: Khamenei issues ultimatum to Mousavi; Update: Mousavi says no?

From Hot Air:

 The moment of truth.

The moderate Iranian leader who says that he was robbed of victory in last week’s presidential election faces a fateful choice today: support the regime or be cast out.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, has told Mir Hossein Mousavi to stand beside him as he uses Friday prayers at Tehran University to call for national unity. An army of Basiji — Islamic volunteer militiamen — is also expected to be bussed in to support the Supreme Leader.

The demand was made at a meeting this week with representatives of all three candidates who claim that the poll was rigged, and it puts Mr Mousavi on the spot…

It was unclear last night what he would do or even whether the protests would die away if he backed down.

Update: The Standard notes that Mousavi’s Twitter feed has a message out urging supporters not to go to prayers tomorrow, which presumably means he won’t be there either. In the unlikely event that they take his advice, that’ll reduce the odds of confrontation. But if he boycotts the event too, it’s a direct slap at Khamenei’s authority. Which means this isn’t Mousavi versus Ahmadinejad anymore, it’s Mousavi versus the whole regime.

Egypt Condemns West's (Obama's) Cautious Stance On Iranian Uprising

Man, we've got a lot of important news the past few days. If you want to keep up, you have to read all 25-30 posts a day from IBA.

Anyway, here's some more from Gateway Pundit:

T

he Egyptian government daily condemned the international community's "cautious" response to the Iranian uprising.
Canada, France and Germany have condemned the Iranian regime and the fraudulent presidential election.
MEMRI reported, via Free Republic:

In its June 18, 2009 editorial, the Egyptian government daily Al-Ahram criticized the international community's cautious stance on the unfolding events in Iran. According to the editorial, this caution gives the Iranian regime the impression that the international community will overlook the crackdown on opposition protests so as not to adversely affect talks on the nuclear issue. 

Following is a translation of the editorial in full: 

"Events in Iran have followed in close succession since the announcement that fundamentalist candidate Ahmadinejad was elected to a second term in the presidential elections. Between the mass demonstrations [of the reformists] decrying electoral fraud, and the counter-demonstrations accusing the reformists of allegiance to the West, the international community has stood confused about what position to take towards this democratic outpouring in a country that is on the threshold of acquiring nuclear capabilities, something all international and regional actors consider an unwelcome development. 

"The caution that has characterized the position of the principle international actors towards the abuses occurring in the streets of Iran, up to and including the killing [of protesters], may be sending the wrong message to the ruling powers there. The upshot of this message is that the strong desire to reach a political resolution to the Iranian nuclear crisis and to avoid a clash with the Iranian authorities is a goal that supersedes all other considerations - even if these other considerations be support for international principles and human rights, and the urging of the [Iranian] government to stop the violence and bloodshed and to lend an ear to the views of the Iranian opposition. [This opposition] has expressed its rejection of the election results and its resistance to a second term for the current president, primarily for domestic reasons, and principle among them [Ahmadinejad's] failed management of the economy."

How sad. Even the Egyptians understand that Barack Obama is terribly misguided in hissupport of the regime.

Go read the whole thing over at Gateway.

More:

Khamenei Sides with Ahmadinejad & Blames Jews-- Warns Opposition of Crackdown (Video)

Hezbollah & Hamas Thugs Photographed in Tehran (Pics)

Obama Is No Reagan: The Polish Lesson Ignored in Iran

American Spectator:

Obama Is No Reagan: The Polish Lesson Ignored in Iran
By Jeffrey Lord on 6.18.09 @ 6:08AM

Barack Obama is no Ronald Reagan.

One need look no further than President Obama's cautiously timid response to the demands of freedom from Iranians. Contrast this with Reagan's response to similar demands from Poles in the 1980s and the miserable inadequacy of the Obama foreign policy is thrust into a stark and shameful relief.

When Reagan took office in January of 1981, Poland had been a Soviet satellite for almost four decades. The American foreign policy establishment had long since settled into an acceptance of moral equivalency between the United States and the Communists. The policy was acted out in a thousand different ways ranging from so-called "détente" (a relaxing of tensions) to a vast, arcane arms control process which over time had substituted the process itself instead of the unconditional victory of freedom as America's chief foreign policy goal.

Reagan had campaigned on a completely different idea, a very old principle when dealing with an adversary. He phrased it this way to his first national security advisor, Richard Allen: "We win, they lose." It was this goal that Reagan sought, and thus caused him to speak bluntly about America's adversary in the Cold War. An "Evil Empire" is how he early-on famously described the Soviet Union, completely horrifying the Obama-like striped-pants set in the State Department and Establishment foreign policy circles. When the Soviet Ambassador made an early call on the new Reaganized State Department he was prevented from the cozy physical access to the building previous administrations had granted him. In times past he was driven into the basement garage and then rode a private elevator to the seventh floor, the location of the Secretary of State's office. He was the only diplomat in all of Washington accorded this special privilege. The rest -- some 150 ambassadors -- had to be driven to the main entrance, walk through the State Department public lobby and take the public elevator. This practice ceased with the Soviet Ambassador's very first visit to the newly Reaganized State Department.

Change was at hand, and the Ambassador -- his limo driver forced to quite publicly back out of the garage and go around to the main entrance in full view of the press -- was not happy.

One of the very first items that arose on Reagan's watch was the rising demand for freedom from the Polish people. On January 21, his first full day in the Oval Office, word reached the White House that a young shipyard worker and union leader named Lech Walesa had informed the Communist government of Poland he had called a series of strikes in four Polish cities, beginning the next day. Within 24 hours hundreds of thousands of Poles in ten cities -- not four -- were publicly defying the Polish Communist dictator, General Wojciech Jaruzelski.

A fight for freedom was on -- and Ronald Reagan had zero intention of standing on the sidelines.

"In my speeches and press conferences, I deliberately set out to say some frank things about the Russians, to let them know there were some new fellows in Washington who had a realistic view of what they were up to and weren't going to let them keep it up." At his very first press conference he answered a question about whether the Soviets could be trusted. "I said the answer to that question could be found in the writings of Soviet leaders: It had always been their philosophy that it was moral to lie or cheat…"

Liberals all over Washington paled. This, they insisted, was no way to conduct diplomacy. One just does not say these things in public. But Reagan had only just begun.

As Walesa and his fellow Poles demanded the most basic of human liberties, Moscow responded by sending troops on maneuvers along the Polish border, then installing a military government with instructions to stop Walesa in his tracks.

Distinctly unlike Obama's reaction to the demonstrators filling the streets of Iran, Reagan looked at similar crowds in Poland and said the sight was "thrilling." Said Reagan: "I wanted to be sure we did nothing to impede this process and everything we could to spur it along."

And so he did. In a stiff note to Soviet boss Leonid Brezhnev, Reagan said that if the Russians kept up their thuggish response to Poland they "could forget any new nuclear arms agreement." Gone too would be better trade relations, and in their place would be the "harshest possible economic sanctions" if they even thought of invading Poland as they had done with Czechoslovakia in 1968 or Hungary in 1956.

The Russians responded. In December, Reagan later recalled, without warning they shut down the Polish borders, shut off communications with the outside world, arrested Walesa and his fellow leaders of Solidarity (the union Walesa led), and imposed martial law.

Almost immediately Reagan was told the stunning news that the Polish Ambassador to the United States and his wife wished to defect. Hesitating not a second, Reagan made certain that American authorities got to the Ambassador before the KGB and "spirited him away to a safe place." Reagan wrote this in his diary at the time:

I took a stand that this may be the last chance in our lifetime to see a change in the Soviet Empire's colonial policy re Eastern Europe. We should take a stand and tell them unless and until martial law is lifted in Poland, the prisoners were released and negotiations resumed between Walesa and the Polish government, we would quarantine the Soviets and Poland with no trade or communications across their borders. Also tell our NATO allies and others to join us in such sanctions or risk an estrangement from us. A TV speech is in the works.

The now-defected Polish Ambassador was invited to the Oval Office. It was the direct opposite of the response from the Ford White House when the great Russian dissident writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn arrived in the U.S. and an Oval Office meeting with President Ford was rejected for fear of antagonizing the Soviets. Reagan said the Ambassador and his wife "had looks of desperation…mixed with relief. Their faces brightened when I told them I welcomed them to America as genuine Polish patriots….It was an emotional moment…and left me with more disgust than ever for the evil men in the Kremlin who believed they had the right to hold an entire nation in captivity. Subsequently, I learned Ambassador Spasowski had been condemned to death by the generals who ruled Poland."

After the meeting was over, Reagan went back to writing what was supposed to be a Christmas message, deciding to use the occasion to send another message altogether to the Soviets, condemning them outright for their conduct in Poland: "We can't let this revolution against Communism fail without offering a hand," he wrote that day in his diary. "We may never have an opportunity like this in our lifetime."

Christmas or not, Reagan proceeded to write Brezhnev about the "recent events in Poland." Warned the President: "Attempts to suppress the Polish people-either by the Polish army or police acting under Soviet pressure, or through even more direct use of the Soviet military force -- certainly will not bring about long term stability in Poland and could unleash a process neither you nor we could fully control." Reagan said the Soviets were encouraging "political terror, mass arrests and bloodshed" and they must either halt this behavior or "we will travel a different path."

On Christmas morning, Reagan had a heated, angry reply from Brezhnev. Furious, he accused the President of "defaming our social and state system, our internal order." It was a charge, Reagan said, "to which I pleaded guilty." The rest of the response from the Soviet leader was a rant. An angry Brezhnev railed about "attempts to dictate your will to other states.." The Soviet Union "repudiates the claims of anyone to interfere in the events occurring in Poland…It is your Administration that has already done enough to disrupt or at the very least undermine everything positive which was achieved at the cost of great effort by previous American administrations in the relations between our countries." Brezhnev also fumed over "the general tone" of Reagan's letter, snapping that it "is not the way in which leaders of such powers as the Soviet Union and the United States should talk with each other…"

Reagan's response? "What a good Christmas present…I'd made my point to Brezhnev."

By New Year's Day a steely Reagan was announcing sanctions against both Poland and the Soviet Union. Negotiations on a long-term grain-sale agreement were halted. Flights into the United States by the Soviet airline Aeroflot were banned by the Reagan Administration. An embargo was imposed on American-made products critical to the Soviet Union, beginning with pipe-laying equipment needed desperately for the construction of the trans-Siberian gas pipeline.

The Europeans bucked at this latter penalty. "The reaction of some of our allies suggested that money spoke louder to them than principle," Reagan said. He ignored them, saying tartly: "There was a lot of talk about not having a set to with our allies. I firmly said to hell with it."

History records that Reagan's decision to take a strong stand for Polish freedom -- and bringing down the Communist system itself -- was the right one. There was nothing timid about his behavior. Indeed, his firm signals were consistent throughout whether he was writing to Leonid Brezhnev, shutting off the once-privileged access of the Soviet Ambassador to the State Department, helping the Polish Ambassador to defect and then making a point of greeting him in the Oval Office or making clear his support for Lech Walesa and the Polish workers of Solidarity. He used every tool at his disposal to push the Communist government of Poland to collapse. And he succeeded.

Lech Walesa went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize and later become the freely elected President of a democratic Poland. In 2007, Walesa's successor as President of Poland traveled to the Reagan Library to present Nancy Reagan, who accepted on behalf of her late husband, The Order of the White Eagle, the oldest and highest honor within the gift of the Polish people. Today one can visit Ronald Reagan Square in Krakow, a Reagan statue is planned for Warsaw and Reagan streets and parks dot the country. He is considered, in the words of the Polish president, the "architect of democracy."

This is a lesson that one realizes the Obama White House simply doesn't have the courage to embrace. As over a million Iranians fill the streets of Tehran, the message from this President of the United States is that he is afraid to be seen as "meddling" -- precisely the charge Reagan faced down from Brezhnev. Instead Obama backs away from standing up for freedom, saying (as if Iran were a free country): "It is up to Iranians to make decisions about who Iran's leaders will be. We respect Iranian sovereignty and want to avoid the United States being the issue inside of Iran." He does say he is "deeply troubled."

As those Iranians who seek freedom are literally shot dead in the streets, Obama observes cautiously that "the democratic process, free speech, the ability of people to peacefully dissent -- all those are universal values and need to be respected." Instead of dealing with the mullahs of Iran in the fashion Reagan dealt with Brezhnev and the Polish Communist puppets, Obama refers deferentially to Ayatollah ali Khamenei, as the "Supreme Leader." Not from this president will you hear as one did from Reagan that this latest thuggish leader is capable of lying and cheating -- an amazing thought when the subject at issue is a fraudulent election and the serious potential of nuclear weapons in the Middle East.

What must the Lech Walesa's of Iran think as they bravely twitter back and forth their demands for human liberty? Twittering and blogging inside Iran suddenly demands the same kind of courage Walesa displayed as a young Polish shipyard worker. What can those Iranian protestors -- the lineal descendants of those Polish Solidarity workers -- possibly think as they demand the same human liberties Ronald Reagan went out of his way to make a reality in Poland? Only to find that this time there is no Ronald Reagan in the Oval Office but rather a timid man who responds to desperate pleas for human freedom in the cautious and precise tones of a law professor?

Both the American and Iranian people are learning Barack Obama is no Ronald Reagan.

Dangerously, the rest of the world is learning it too. This does not bode well.