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Go Home Is Obama Secretly Rooting Against Iran's Liberals?

THE PLANK JUNE 17, 2009

Is Obama Secretly Rooting Against Iran's Liberals?

BY JONATHAN CHAIT

Robert Kagan has a fairly embarassing column today excoriating President Obama for failing to support the Iranian protestors. Kagan begins with the premise that the Bush administration pursued an idealistic policy of supporting the Iranian opposition, which Obama has abandoned in the name of realism:

The United States had to provide some guarantee to the regime that it would no longer support opposition forces or in any way seek its removal. The idea was that the United States could hardly expect the Iranian regime to negotiate on core issues of national security, such as its nuclear program, so long as Washington gave any encouragement to the government's opponents. Obama had to make a choice, and he made it. This was widely applauded as a "realist" departure from the Bush administration's quixotic and counterproductive idealism. 

Exactly what support did the Bush administration give to Iran's opposition? Kagan does not say at all. Moreover, if the Bush administration was frenetically aiding the Iranian opposition, and Obama has turned its back on them, Kagan might want to explain why the opposition languished for eight years and has sprung to life only after Bush departed the scene.That's not dispositive, but it is the sort of complicating wrinkle Kagan might want to address. Alas, he does not.

Instead, Kagan simply assumes that Obama is restraining his rhetorical support for the opposition because he wants it to fail. I can't prove that this is false because I don't have access to Obama's inner thoughts. But I strongly suspect it's false. Moreover, I tend to agree with Obama's argument that vocally supporting the demonstrators would undermine them. I could be persuaded to change my mind about this if presented with strong enough evidence--say, the stated desire by leading opposition figures for Obama to openly embrace them

But Kagan provides no evidence here, either. He simply falls into the neocon habit of using the word "objectively" to avoid the need for reason:

His strategy toward Iran places him objectively on the side of the government's efforts to return to normalcy as quickly as possible, not in league with the opposition's efforts to prolong the crisis.

In fact, it's anything but "objective" that Obama's restraint is helping the Iranian government. It's a highly subjective proposition, one that Kagan does absolutely nothing to defend.

--Jonathan Chait

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26 comments

It's not just that the opposition languished for eight years under Bush; there was a substantial reformist movement in the 1990's and on into 2001, right up until Bush started yammering about axes of evil.  Then, like a miracle, the opposition has returned and is filling the streets with demonstrators now that Bush is gone.  Clearly his support was invaluable.

- FWright

June 17, 2009 at 11:57am

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Plus, the rhetorical trick of using "objectively" exactly as Kagan does here is beloved of old time Marxists.  It's just a way of broadcasting how hardnosed and "scientific" you are, and avoiding actually having to demonstrate the point.  Kagan certainly knows the Marxist use of "objectively" perfectly well.  I'm amazed he stoops to it.

- rriley

June 17, 2009 at 12:05pm

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There is a class of people out there, and it sadly includes Martin Peretz, who believe that the important thing in politics is what side you take, not what things you accomplish.  So if the Iranian government is bad (which it is), you should be constantly reiterating this fact publicly, regardless of whether it will actually improve things in Iran (which it won't).  

For some reason this impulse is particularly present with respect to the Middle East, and it continually fucks up our efforts to accomplish anything substantive there.  But you can also see it in discussions on China, North Korea, Pakistan, and certain domestic issues like crime, poverty, and education.

- ratnerstar

June 17, 2009 at 12:17pm

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for the neo-cons a revolution there would be a nightmare for them, just recently Bolton was advocating for Israel to bomb the hell out of Iran, it would be impossible if the reformists win (just how much they will reform I have no idea, but they will be given time). It would be fascinating if the students do win out how the Repubs will do backflips of logic claiming that the results were because of their standing strong (as though Iranian students read the Weekly Standard for their inspiration)

- blackton

June 17, 2009 at 12:46pm

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I love the phrase "fairly embarrassing" in relation to a Kagan column. That's almost as good as Kagan gets - though in fairness, every once in a great while he hits his pinnacle of "hardly embarrassing at all."

- Geoff G

June 17, 2009 at 12:47pm

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The column is an embarrassing debacle, even by Mr Kagan's gruesome standards.

- DC Spence

June 17, 2009 at 1:02pm

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Whenever I read and hear the latest musings of Kagan, Bolton and the gang, I can't help but see the image of John Larroquette in Stripes playing with the toy soldiers on the table of his office and gleefully running them over with his toy tanks.  And, naturally enough, none of these people have ever been anywhere near an active warzone, so they really have no sense of what things are like on the ground when guns are blazing and bombs are detonating.

- wildboy

June 17, 2009 at 1:33pm

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Kagan, like so many neocons, is simply a flipped communist. Back in the day, if you disagreed with the communists, you were labeled an objective fascist. By Kagan's dialectic, Obama is objectively working to give Iran the bomb and destroy Israel.

- AMVHuck

June 17, 2009 at 1:52pm

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I imagine this scenario:  Obama makes an open show of support for the opposition; Kagan, Bolton, Krauthammer cheer wildly; there's another election and Mousavi wins; everyone is happy; Mousavi begins to liberalize the Iranian state and economy; everyone is suffused with joy; Mousavi says that for sovereign national security reasons, Iran will continue with its nuclear program; Kagan, Bolton, Krauthammer call for the immediate bombing of Iran.

- ironyroad

June 17, 2009 at 3:16pm

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But how do these people still get work?

- The Ignorant Populist

June 17, 2009 at 3:22pm

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From Commentary Magazine's "Contentions" Weblog:

Chait Speech

Jonathan Chait of the New Republic just published a vicious blog slam at Robert Kagan, calling his complex and interesting column today “fairly embarrassing.” Robert Kagan, as it happens, is a contributing editor of the New Republic and sits on the same masthead as Jonathan Chait. The person who is “fairly embarrassing” in this situation is not Kagan.

--Posted By John Podhoretz - 06.17.2009 - 3:10 PM

Copyright © 1997-2009 Commentary Magazine

All Rights Reserved

www.commentarymagazine.com/.../70341

- bkaplovitz

June 17, 2009 at 4:10pm

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So - what happens after the bombing? Oh yeah - they welcome us as liberators and beg for us to install a stock exchange by sundown.

- Wandreycer1

June 17, 2009 at 4:15pm

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Kagan is constructing a simple argument to appeal to the simple-minded.  It is much too subtle and tricky a notion to understand that Bush may have been deliberately sabotaging the human rights movement in Iran with his frequent offers of assistance and moral support.  Iranian activists repeatedly told the Bush administration to keep their distance to avoid tainting their efforts with American backing.

So yeah, either Bush was trying to subvert the human rights efforts in Iran, or he was just too simple-minded to understand the nature of the situation.

- kerFuFFler

June 17, 2009 at 4:22pm

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Wow, bkaplowitz, that may be the first time that someone published a link to something written by JPod in TNR's comments section.  Not even jacobtl went quite that far.

- wildboy

June 17, 2009 at 4:22pm

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Will someone please apprise me of Kagan's outrage regarding American policy in, say, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and China?

What specific policies did BushWorld embrace to let these repressive regimes know that America takes politcal repression in their countries very, very seriously.

That we are, as Obama insisted, "concerned" about it

george

- iambiguous

June 17, 2009 at 4:36pm

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I just wish the Neocons would go away - get lost, die, wank off, whatever.  Yeah, because, you know, the masses in Iran are waiting to hear from Obama to pour into the streets or not - that the Iranian regime is really heartened by the fact that Obama has not yet denounced them - that the truncheon-wielding thugs were waiting for "We are all Iranians now" by an American to start killing and maiming the students ...

Blackie: unlike the previous unrest in the past thirty years, this one is not led by students or by ethnic groups.  Today there were, again, hundreds of thousands in silent procession (so as not to give any excuses to the security forces to intervene); they are young and old, student and working (or, just as likely, unemployed) - all solidly middle class.  

Mousavi's press release of today referred to the death of the students earlier this week - seven of them clubbed to death and buried secretly - as "martyrdom" - a really loaded term in Iran - and has called for a "memorial" procession on Thursday.  Karrubi, the other "reformist" candidate, has called his own memorial procession on Friday, targetting the Friday prayers, at which Khamenei will preside.  They are using the Islamic Revolution's old tactics - in Shi'ism, the third, seventh and fortieth day after dead require vigils and memorials, so every day someone gets killed, gives the excuse to have demonstrations.  The Friday prayer gambit is especially clever, because they can't very well tear-gas the place if the Leader is out there, speaking.

Nah, regardless of what Obama says, this appears to be going on - and while I was critical of Obama's initial silence, he has said what needed to be said.  To argue that he is "objectively" on the side of the Mullahs is the height of hypocrisy.

- icarusr

June 17, 2009 at 4:46pm

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Love that "vicious" in the Pod's comment!  Apparently, for conservatives, pointing out some inconsistencies in a pundit's argument is now one step away from psychopathic savagery.

- ironyroad

June 17, 2009 at 4:52pm

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Earlier today I wrote a critique of Robert Kagan's op-ed , pointing out numerous lapses in logic

- Anonymous

June 17, 2009 at 5:32pm

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"Jonathan Chait of the New Republic just published a vicious blog slam at Robert Kagan, calling his complex and interesting column today 'fairly embarrassing.'"

Did Kagan write a column today we don't know about?  Because the one linked here was pure crap, and could only make sense to someone that ignored recent history in Iran.  If we've learned anything over the last ten years, it's that even neocons aren't entitled to their own facts.

- FWright

June 17, 2009 at 5:35pm

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The Commentary editor follows up to say that his response to my critique of Robert Kagan: was not a rebuttal;

- Anonymous

June 17, 2009 at 7:38pm

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II am not willing to dismiss Kagan’s assertions. out of hand  But Kagan must  give us facts to support his assertions. This column is a fact free /quote free zone.

Myself, I do tend to think that anything Obama could say on behalf of the liberal opposition would backfire

Back in 1956, during the Hungarian uprising, Ike spoke words of sympathy for the workers and students. This had the unfortunate consequence of emboldening the rebels and enraging the Soviets. The workers and students were tarred as "agents of imperialism and foreign intervention" and were subsequently crushed, while the US did little to help them, after providing moral support

We don’t want to repeat that mistake again

- tembrach

June 18, 2009 at 11:04am

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Isn't Kagan paid by TNR to post just such bullshit pieces? I seem to remember a few strawman posts by this darling of the Necons right here on the Plank. Or is another of the Kagans? I get them confused.

- mpatrickhendri

June 18, 2009 at 11:15am

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I don’t understand all the vitriol against Kagan’s article.

Some of his reasoning comes down to the following.

Obama’s Iran policy has him wanting to negotiate with Iran’s rulers on all issues on the premise of not demonizing them and thus their legitimacy.

No one knows now how the upheaval in Iran will go and it may be that Ahma. will retain power.

Therefore, it is prudent to say little, throw out some bromides of concern, but keep powder dry. (That Kagan is cynical about the calculation that speaking up will hurt the dissident voices does not detract substantially from his main argument.)

Apart from quarrelling with Kagan about the above calculation, I don’t agree with his conclusion that Obama prefers the dissidence to die down so that he can get back to negotiating with Ahma. That conclusion does not follow from the granting to Ahma of legitimacy in order to try to negotiate with him.

I think Obama hopes the dissidents effect real change in Iran. But the observation that the upheaval throws a real fly in the immediate policy of dealing with Iran and why it’s wise to keep a low profile on what’s going on ranges fro correct to arguable.

So again, I can see disagreeing with Kagan. What I can’t see is all the venomous geshrey.

- basman

June 18, 2009 at 3:08pm

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Robert Kagan emails to contested one element of my critique of his column. I wrote : Kagan begins with

- Anonymous

June 18, 2009 at 3:44pm

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The word spread in today's news reports that the State Department got the Twitter people to defer maintenance so that Iranian protesters could keep sending out their messages without pause. This looks like the kind of covert support that could prove effective. Meanwhile, with the availability of numerous Internet media, ordinary Americans don't have to wait for the government to speak up before doing some speaking up themselves.

- nbarry

June 18, 2009 at 10:12pm

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Different perspective adding some strength to Kagan's observations that i referred to above: bloggingheads.tv/.../20548

- basman

June 19, 2009 at 1:37pm

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