Quick Rant About Attitudes Towards Events in Iran...

This post from Commentary correspondent Michael Totten sums up a lot of the frustration that I have been feeling towards certain quarters of the American commentariat (both professional and otherwise).

The argument by this segment runs along something of the following:

"Well, we don't know that the Iranian election was really fraudulent. Those people saying so are just pissed off because the more pro-Western candidate didn't win. The elections probably do represent the will of the Iranian people - they just want different things than Westerners do. All the people protesting are just spoiled rich kids. [Insert some comment about American imperialism and the hypocrisy of American foreign policy here]."

The argument from the other side runs along the lines of:

"Well, Iran never has free elections. It's just a theocratic dictatorship, as its been since 1979. It's just a matter of choosing one candidate vetted by the establishment over another. Besides, having regime change does not necessarily serve American strategic interests [Insert some comment about nuclear weapons and Israel here]."

The fallacy of both arguments is that they ignore the deep upsurge in political action by the Iranian people. What's happening there cannot be defined simply in terms of socioeconomic class, or anti-imperialism, or even pro-imperialism for that matter. Thousands, potentially millions of people are day-after-day acting in unison in direct contravenion to the authorities' commands and wishes. This could lead to something big. What happens will lie in the hands of the Iranian people and the reactions by the establishment (which is showing some signs of cracking).

American observers should be skeptical of unfiltered information coming out of the country, but they should not be so skeptical or self-centered, lest they be left on the sidelines of history.