[img]1|left|||no_popup[/img]Isn’t it fascinating?
So many Swish Obama stories the last six months have begun that way.
Even though technology has shrunk the world into such a cozy little ball we can have a group hug on 5 minutes’ notice, isn’t it fascinating that a desperation cry for a country’s freedom, broadcast into a hundred microphones in Iran, is blown off again by the White House as so much blather.
Is there any voice that Mr. Obama acknowledges other than his own?
Six weeks and four days after the fruitcake mullahs of Iran staged an election that should have been rated as ludicrous even by Mr. Obama’s ankle-high Chicago standards, the cheated loser is begging his supporters — and the world at large — to answer his plea by staging public protests next week against the dictator government of Iran.
This probably is the boldest step ventured since the June 12 elections by Mir-Hussein Mousavi, one of the most intriguing would-be government leaders on earth.
You don’t stroll hand-in-hand with your girl through any streets in Iran.
Because Iran is about as perilous as walking through Skippy Peanut Butter’s Cambridge digs in a cop uniform, Mr. Mousavi has weaved in and out of the shadows of Tehran, just in the interest of staying alive, let alone accomplishing anything.
A Candidate for Assassination
Any hour, any day, even in his own home, he could be bumped off by the fruitcake mullahs. They have been studying old American black-and-white films about Mafia wars and scribbling down notes in illegible Farsi.
Mr. Mousavi lost the election fairly to the Smiling Dwarf, Ahmadinejad, only if you believe that 40 million-plus paper ballots, strewn the length of the land, were scrupulously collected, carefully counted and painstakingly tabulated in 4 hours.
And where is our President during this globe-rattling uproar?
For reasons that mystify both supporters and his swelling chorus of critics, Mr. Obama has folded his arms at the elbow, placed a faraway expression on his poker face and retreated to a corner quite without comment.
If Mr. Mousavi and his cohorts were Jews, I would understand.
Mr. Obama has declared, in the most unmistakable terms, he has no use for Jews, especially Israeli Jews, and any American Jew who supports him is a fool.
Even left-wing Israeli Jews are speaking out today about Mr. Obama’s too-obvious-to-hide loathing for Jews and the Land of Israel, which he would turn over in an eyelash to his Muslim colleagues.
Say Something
Nevertheless, Mr. Obama stunningly stands motionless while the Smiling Dwarf shakes his fist at Israel and while Mr. Mousavi gasps for assistance.
What is going on with our President? It is too facile to flick away a pre-packaged answer by saying that he does not care about Persian democrats because he has a backstage agreement with the Smiling Dwarf.
Maybe that is false or true. I know of no one who knows the President’s mind on this baffler.
Here is a rare opening for a world leader with a penchant for polishing a legacy that presently is in decline — a chance to write your name hugely in history as the rescuer of an imprisoned people.
It would not cost the notoriously miserly Mr. Obama even one dollar to declare rhetorical encouragement to Mr. Mousavi. It is an American tradition to encourage would-be democrats of the world, a practice dating back to Ben Franklin’s day, if the President needs a nudge.
The week of the Iranian election, we said — foolishly, in retrospect — that it made no difference whether the Smiling Dwarf or Mr. Mousavi won the nationwide election.
How very wrong we were.
Once, we reviled Mr. Mousavi. In fact, until pretty recently.
Mr. Mousavi was a horrible steward of the Iranian people in the 1980s when he had meaningful power. He bowed to no one when it came to snapping venom at Jews just because they were Jews. Like the disgusting Dwarf, he, too, threatened to destroy the Land of Israel.
But both the passage of time and world circumstances can change people, can immeasurably improve the inherent character of people.
Mr. Mousavi is a changed man this afternoon.
I, as a Jew, would happily fight alongside him, and for his cause, were I fortunate enough to be in Tehran this week and next.