Is Obama a Friend of Freedom?

Polish dissident Lech Walesa recently said of Ronald Reagan:

“When talking about Ronald Reagan, I have to be personal. We in Poland took him so personally. Why? Because we owe him our liberty. This can't be said often enough by people who lived under oppression for half a century, until communism fell in 1989. Poles fought for their freedom for so many years that they hold in special esteem those who backed them in their struggle. Support was the test of friendship. President Reagan was such a friend…”

The leader of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Havel, gave similar credit to Reagan for his moral support of the anticommunist rebellion in his own country.

Yet President Obama prefers to take a ‘wait and see’ attitude toward the dissident movement in Iran. He wants to know who the winner will be before he takes sides. He does not want to “antagonize’ the brutal dictators who are the major exporters of international terrorism. He wants to be sure they are not upset with him when he eventually sits down across the negotiating table. Years from now, if the dissidents succeed in winning their freedom, they are unlikely to express much fondness for the role Obama played in their struggle against tyranny.

Obama sent Vice-President Biden to Lebanon on the eve of their national election, thus giving a big boost to the anti-Hezbollah forces that prevailed in that vote. Somehow that was not “meddling.” Of course it was—and with good cause. The cause of American self-interest, the security of a key American ally, Israel, and the defeat of international terrorism.

Obama claims he does not want to give the Iranian leadership any cause to blame the United States for the uprising. Well, guess what? The Iranian leadership is doing that anyway. But the dissidents are not responding as expected.

Things have changed in the 30 years since the Ayatollah overthrew the Shah. There was considerable anti-American sentiment then, because the U.S. was seen as propping up the Shah. But today’s Iranian dissidents are singing a very different tune. Most of them were not even born in 1979. What they want is freedom, and they are looking to the leader of the free world for some much-needed encouragement.

This is the moment we have been waiting for—the perfect opportunity to get rid of this oppressive theocracy without firing a shot, and we are choosing to sit quietly on the sidelines. In the name of American self-interest, we should be actively helping the dissidents in any way we can.

The evidence that they want our support is clear. Many of the signs they are holding are written in English. Whose attention do you think they are seeking? Two thirds of Iran’s current population is thirty and under, and they do not want to live their lives under a backward theocratic regime. Many of them are yelling: “Death to the Ayatollah!” They like America because, up to now, we have explicitly declined to endorse their oppressors.

But in his relative silence, Obama is doing exactly that. Would Bush have handled the situation differently? Who knows? He did not speak out in support of the protestors in Tibet in 2008. Nor did he back those protesting the re-election of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak in 2005. But in neither of those cases were the vital interests of the United States as much at stake as they are in Iran.

We can only hope that Obama will reverse course and emulate the unflinching courage of Ronald Reagan. If Obama could successfully rally the international community to the cause of freedom in Iran, he might well earn a place alongside Reagan’s proud legacy.