Thoughts About Iran
The last couple of weeks of events in Iran have been an interesting display of civil disobedience and a look inside of a country who’s younger population is usually ignored.
My thoughts on the politics of Iran are simple, we do not have an obligation to interfere with a country’s democratic elections, no matter what the feelings are for the leader. The unrest and violence against protesters is something we should all agree is wrong, but to suggest that President Obama stand-up and condemn what is happening in Iran as far as the elected official is concerned is hypocritical. Our defense of democracy cannot be blurred by the social issues that infect other nations. If Obama was to step in and declare Mousavi the winner then he has done nothing for democracy or for the people of Iran. This ties directly into the fact that Ahmadinejad may have actually won the election by a bigger margin than what his own polls suggested.
We should be watching the unrest and making sure that our feelings towards using violence to quash protests are known, but our politics on who we want elected need to be left out of the discussion. What happens in Iran is important but our meddling in their affairs is no better than other times we’ve done so, no matter how noble some think it is.
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I agree.