(CBS/AP)
Republicans remain livid about deficit spending. Democrats haven't kissed and made up with Dick Cheney over Guantanamo and the treatment of detainees. But the Iranian street demonstrations protesting the results of that nation's presidential election have generated a rare moment of consensus from both ends of the American political spectrum.
In the conservative-leaning
New Ledger, Pejman Yousefzadeh says that Iranians still "view the United States as powerful" and makes the case why this is not the time to mumble diplomatic platitudes.
"Those who have opposed the Islamic regime and its various depredations–both inside and outside of Iran–have waited over thirty years for a moment like this one. A moment in which the fundamental nature of the Iranian government could be changed for the better. A moment when, at long last, Iran’s leaders may come close to becoming worthy of its people. How devastatingly tragic would it be if this moment were allowed to pass, merely because the Obama administration might overshoot its efforts to refrain from imperialism. Not all silence is golden."
Richard Just of The New Republic couldn't recall the last time another country's internal political dispute generated this level of domestic support.
"Last year, John McCain was widely mocked for his declaration that 'we are all Georgians.' True, the analogy between that crisis and this one isn't perfect: The Russia-Georgia war was a dispute between two countries, while this is a dispute between two sides in the same country. But the principle is the same. McCain was identifying what he believed to be the more liberal, more democratic side in a faraway conflict and expressing his unabashed support for it. To hear the ridicule that greeted McCain's statement, you might have concluded that Americans had lost their appetite for foreign policy idealism of any kind. But today, there seems to be near-unanimity that Americans ought to be rooting for one side in Iran. Which suggests that our instinct toward foreign policy idealism, however battered by the past eight years, is still very much alive."
True enough. After the sharp divide over the wisdom of the war in Iraq, U.S. politicians and bloggers of all political stripes are united in singing the praises of the Iranian opposition and the need to express solidarity. In fact, some, like House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, R-Va., want the White House to
voice stronger support for the demonstrators, especially now that the political crackdown has turned violent.
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