After remaining patient, silently considering what has happened in the last days, but especially what’s played out over this remarkable day, President Obama made his first statement on the “green revolution”, my term not the President’s, that is unfolding.
“…It is up to Iranians to make decisions about who Iran’s leaders will be. We respect Iranians sovereignty. … Having said all that, I am deeply troubled by the violence I’ve been seeing on television. I think the democratic process, free speech, the ability of people to peacefully dissent, all those are universal values and need to be respected. And whenever I see violence perpetrated on people who are peacefully dissenting and whenever the American people see that, I think they are rightfully troubled. [...] There appears to be a sense on the part of people who were so hopeful and so engaged, committed to democracy, who now feel betrayed… – President Barack Obama
More than anything the Iranians marching need to keep the pressure on. Obama’s timing may have offered just that lift, coming tonight, the day before the nation wide strike Mir Hussein Mousavi called for tomorrow.
It is 1979 in Tehran all over again. From Saturday to Sunday, the deafening sound deep in the night across Tehran’s rooftops was a roaring, ubiquitous “Allah-u Akbar” (God is great). Then, in 1979, to hail the Islamic revolution; now, in 2009, to signify what appears to be the hijacking of the Islamic revolution. Then, the revolution was not televised; it was via (Ruhollah Khomeini) radio. Now, it is being broadcast all across the world.
Let’s cut to the chase: what Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi qualified as “this dangerous charade” and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “the sweetness of the election”, or better yet, a “divine assessment”, has all the non-divine markings of intervention by the Iranian Republican Guards Corps (IRGC). …
No one else is calling it a “green revolution,” but that’s what it is around here. If for no other reason than to give wings to hope through two little words, because the Iranians need encouragement and to believe that what they’re doing is rocking Iran and the world, even if overturning the current reality is not very good. They’ve changed Iran forever in the last days. It may take time, but it’s coming.
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