A Gentleman’s view.

Leadership out of touch with reality does a fine job of snatching their country back to the 19th Century.

Democracy in a Muslim Nation as taught to the world by Iran over the last week and a half, has failed dramatically. Supreme leaders with final say automatically make the statement an oxymoron. An election is held in which massive numbers of voters are claiming there’s something rotten with the results. His is the final authority and thus whoever is elected will be towing the line as he so sees fit for his country. This all knowing and most wise of the clerics running this nation decides while the world is watching that it is in the best interest of his country to yank his people back to the dark ages by beating and shooting liberty out of them. So now, for the sake of a most fortunate revolution empowering its leaders in the most disadvantageous way, one old man refuses to join the 21st Century, and mightily attempts to hold on to a world that no longer is. The world watches a declared religious state run by zealots bent on corrupting the teachings of the Koran in order that they may create on earth their view of what paradise should be. This corruption has caused much anguish for this country as it has made declarations of dire threats the Jewish state and others not holding the same view of how civilization should turn out. Many of the young Iranians making up more than 60 percent of the population want the country to join the western countries in how things should be run.

The Republicans are blowing this one in a major way, I don’t know why, but you actually have Senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain calling President Obama’s response to this struggle for freedom that sprung up I feel out of the speech our President gave when he was in Cairo a couple of week ago, weak and tepid. He attempted to offer the olive branch of peace to the Muslim world and in particular; Iran. He clearly stated his support for those protesting and requested that Iran recognize the concerns of its citizens and not tries to destroy this event-taking place before the world’s eyes. At least Scarbourgh from Morning Joe and Pat Buchanan felt that the President was handling this thing the best he could, and that was to stay out of that country’s peaceful attempt at democracy. So a majority of Iranian youthful culture wants the country to move in a more modern, competitive, worldly direction and the old guard wants to clamp down on the society even more. Thus, while the world is rocking and reeling from the flaws in the system that allowed the financial chaos that almost brought the whole world to a standstill, we in the western world can look at what is going on by old school clerics unable to keep up with the times and say they cannot get it right either. The Mullahs may want to stay in the Dark Ages, but the scent of true Democracy has reached out and touched their hearts with the Cairo speech, and I don’t believe they will be able to put this genie back in the bottle.

With Iran, Think Before You Speak

By John Kerry

June 18, 2009

The grass-roots protests that have engulfed Iran since its presidential election last week have grabbed America’s attention and captured headlines — unfortunately, so has the clamor from neoconservatives urging President Obama to denounce the voting as a sham and insert ourselves directly in Iran’s unrest.

No less a figure than Senator John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee in 2008, has denounced President Obama’s response as “tepid.” He has also claimed that “if we are steadfast eventually the Iranian people will prevail.”

Mr. McCain’s rhetoric, of course, would be cathartic for any American policy maker weary of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s hostile message of division. We are all inspired by Iran’s peaceful demonstrations, the likes of which have not been seen there in three decades. Our sympathies are with those Iranians who seek a more respectful, cooperative relationship with the world. Watching heartbreaking video images of Basij paramilitaries terrorizing protesters, we feel the temptation to respond emotionally.

There’s just one problem. If we actually want to empower the Iranian people, we have to understand how our words can be manipulated and used against us to strengthen the clerical establishment, distract Iranians from a failing economy and rally a fiercely independent populace against outside interference. Iran’s hard-liners are already working hard to pin the election dispute, and the protests, as the result of American meddling. On Wednesday, the Iranian Foreign Ministry chastised American officials for “interventionist” statements. Government complaints of slanted coverage by the foreign press are rising in pitch.

We can’t escape the reality that for reformers in Tehran to have any hope for success, Iran’s election must be about Iran — not America. And if the street protests of the last days have taught us anything, it is that this is an Iranian moment, not an American one.

To understand this, we need only listen to the demonstrators. Their signs, slogans and Twitter postings say nothing about getting help from Washington — instead they are adapting the language of their own revolution. When Iranians shout “Allahu Akbar” from rooftops, they are repackaging the signature gesture of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Mir Hussein Moussavi, the leading reformist presidential candidate, has advocated a more conciliatory approach to America. But his political legitimacy comes from his revolutionary credentials for helping overthrow an American-backed shah — a history that today helps protect protesters against accusations of being an American “fifth column.”

Iran’s internal change is happening on two levels: on the streets, but also within the clerical establishment. Ultimately, no matter who wins the election, our fundamental security challenge will be the same — preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. That will take patient effort, and premature engagement in Iran’s domestic politics may well make negotiations more difficult.

What comes next in Iran is unclear. What is clear is that the tough talk that Senator McCain advocates got us nowhere for the last eight years. Our saber-rattling only empowered hard-liners and put reformers on the defensive. An Iranian president who advocated a “dialogue among civilizations” and societal reforms was replaced by one who denied the Holocaust and routinely called for the destruction of Israel.

Meanwhile, Iran’s influence in the Middle East expanded and it made considerable progress on its nuclear program.

The last thing we should do is give Mr. Ahmadinejad an opportunity to evoke the 1953 American-sponsored coup, which ousted Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh and returned Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi to power. Doing so would only allow him to cast himself as a modern-day Mossadegh, standing up for principle against a Western puppet.

Words are important. President Obama has made that clear in devising a new approach to Iran and the wider Muslim world. In offering negotiation and conciliation, he has put the region’s extremists on the defensive.

We have seen the results of this new vision already. His outreach may have helped to make a difference in the election last week in Lebanon, where a pro-Western coalition surprised many by winning a resounding victory.

We’re seeing signs that it’s having an impact in Iran as well. Returning to harsh criticism now would only erase this progress, empower hard-liners in Iran who want to see negotiations fail and undercut those who have risen up in support of a better relationship.

We have upstaged the British with our election of President Barack Obama.

It is no matter to the British that we are the most powerful country on the planet even with the extremely trying times we find ourselves in today., or that we have been in that position for some time. The mindset of a colonial power always was and always will be that of a parent. For good or evil that is the reality of the relationship of one country of immense influence having control over another country anywhere on the planet. Most of these relationships were forged over location, resources, or just plain economics. These smaller countries either had something unique to sell or are strategically positioned geographically or offer some kind of gateway to another region of the world. America, though not the India they Europeans were seeking, turned out to be something they could have never expected, and a more than average return on investment in the scheme of the markets today. They will always see us as an extension of themselves, and various countries will claim to have marked this society with their own historic relationship with America, when it comes to the British, French and Germans. By far and away, the British has led the modern western civilized world today with the basic concepts, principles and standards for society and in particular, us.

So every little thing we accomplish, they sit back and look at the young empire sowing it’s oats and smile thinking; ‘Yes, those were the days when you were growing and tackling new challenges along the way’, then returning to the brandy and cigar and whatever they were reading. Their country is over two thousand years old, not just over 200 like us. They have met and experienced as a country and part of the European continent more than we could ever imagined, and only read about through the written word. But, America has a black President. This is different; this is not like beating the Russians to the moon or manufacturing the combustion engine first. This state of this union has selected a black citizen, who comes from an environment where his people make up only thirteen percent of the total population, thirty five percent of the prison population. Until he arrived, there were no black Senators, and the one replacing him is under the cloud of one former colorful governor, Rod Blagojevich. This black man went up against the best the Democrats had to offer, and that is saying a lot. Now this black man is on the world stage and historically placed to chastise the world for not caring better for all of its people instead of a select few. To the parent, Great Britain, this must be psychologically painful to watch by way of civilized accomplishments as a society. The damn bloody upstarts Americans have upstaged the poor British once again.

As a fan of the British and their culture, I’d like to offer to them a suggestion as a way to start down this same road as a society themselves. As with starting anything new and extremely different sometimes it is better to pretend real before going real, like in sports, the offense guys or those who score practice what they do against those who practice how to stop them from scoring. The ultimate expression of the male British persona is wrapped up in the character of the big screen 007, James Bond. I remember reading in print somewhere when President Obama won the election, the current actor playing the role of Bond today Daniel Craig saying that it was time for a black Bond. I say that is the way to go, in increments, crawling before you walk kind of thing. Select an debonair black actor to play the role of James Bond, who represents the most proud essence of British maleness and let him do at least 3 to 5 pictures in the role, as one and done on this type of thing won’t be enough, so select wisely. This will facilitate the possibility of one day you too can be proud that you can see in a black man, someone who can represent your country to the rest of the world. In order to match what happened in America, the British are going to have to  start by pretending giving a black man the license to kill for the Crown.

This President has admitted to colonial wrongs committed way before his time.

The Republicans in their usually graceful respect for their opposition don’t wait for the leader of the most powerful country in the world to return home before condemning his rhetoric for being too apologetic and denigrating as a man of his position. They say he is making this country look weak by admitting to previously flawed policies. His blackness will cause consternation among those believing he has not the right to be there, yet must be accepted as a statement of pride for citizens of this country black, white or otherwise. For right wing or not, they are part of an experience no other country in Western Civilization has pulled off to date, that being have a person of color as the sole representative leader to the rest of the world. England, France, all of the countries of Europe that make up the western hemisphere of civilization, some have had women as leaders, but none a male of color, especially a black male.

Particularly interesting about this black male, son of a Muslim, though not one himself, is his position as a black man, coming from a country with probably the worst reputation for the treatment of black men and even less expectations for their contribution to our country. Oh yes, we can sing and dance, we can entertain, we can jump oh so high, but really, other than jazz, what have blacks contributed to the overall American culture as a whole besides crime. This is why such a large percentage of the black male population is locked up in this country because accepting anything else for them would increase the competition for resources already deemed not to be enough to go around. So, with this reputation existing worldwide about how America views its black population, that same world is mystified how our most talented President pulled winning this election off. Both of these experiences place this man in a unique position to read the international community the riot act for many things that have gone wrong because of prejudice.

The strength of his position in his speech to the Muslim world was from having the foresight to acknowledge verbally some of the colonial wrongs committed by the United States and many of the European nations before and during the cold war, but also being honest about how we got involved in our present situation in Iraq. The former leaders of this nation choose to commit to this war, it didn’t have to. Though the Republicans think this is a mistake, the rest of the free world is responding very well to the more humane approach to the tone of this President’s foreign policy. For all the grand video presentations and speeches by Osama Bin Laden, and Ayman al-Zawahiri, I have yet to hear them complain about Muslims dying unnecessarily during this supposed jihad with the western world. I have heard no Muslims leaders or Ayatollah’s even being the least bit upset about explosions taking place in the marketsplaces or the Mosque. One could maybe understand the attacks in this exchange of differing religious and secular perspectives if they were directed solely against the military occupying their country, but that is not the case. When will their leaders start saying that the taking of a life as any but the last option, is not the way to paradise for young Muslim men according to the Koran.

This man has taken such a step with many of the countries involved in conflict today in the Middle East, with Israel and the settlements, with the Iranian leadership and its statements about the Holocaust, to the Muslim treatment of their women. This speech for me was more than a statement of we are under new management, but a real attempt by an American politician to get resolution to the Middle East Conflict by opening up with honest engagement. The ultimate olive branch of life has just been offered to the Middle East Muslim community. They have lost the argument that United States is just looking to continue the relationship by force alone. The leaders of any warring factions of Al-Qaeda with the western civilization must now come up with a legitimate recruiting tool to counter the open hand President Obama has extended to the Muslim world.