Obama Charts New Path in Iran

I am a fairly young American, roughly the same age as the average Iranian, and I have very conflicted points of view about American involvement in the world. Here’s why:

I will not defend most of the U.S. intervention in the Middle East, South America, or East Asia. However, it is often because of methodology. The US has a history of putting power into the enemy of its enemies, without asking the question of whether or not it was good for the people in those nations. It was good for us, so we did it.

This is very complicated because legitimate policy concerns become justifications for actions that have consequences that are far reaching. A good example is the Monroe Doctrine. Did the United States have totally legitimate security reasons for keeping Europeans out? YES! Would it have been beneficial to colonies in south and central America to have European powers blocked from recolonizing them? Absolutely! Did the US abuse this completely justifiable policy for its own selfish, imperialist reasons? Yes it did!
But that is the history that we, the youth of the world, have been saddled with. We have not chosen it. Even recent history (Iraq, Afghanistan, everything Bush did or said) many of us have fought against. President Obama has also been saddled with this history, with the consequences of the actions of our predecessors, and even the predecessors of our enemies, allies, and other nations of the world.

The challenge in a place like Iran, or Haiti, or any other nation, is to find a new path. Sanctions, military interventions… these policies are almost always corrupted, with ulterior motives and hidden agents working for clandestine motives. Even when they start as noble, rational, justifiable policies, there are hidden winners and losers. Rarely, the people of the nations that we try to help by direct, heavy-handed intercession, are helped.

Does that mean we do nothing? Many Iranian expatriates think so. They believe that any intervention into Iran will de legitimize the Green Movement. They distrust American neo cons (with VERY good reason). They also see the nuclear issue as a distraction from the very serious global and regional concerns about trade, security, and Israel. So that means that I think the U.S. and its allies should do nothing, right?

No. First of all, the probability of us doing nothing is very slim. It simply isn’t a realistic expectation that the American politicians will sit back and watch events unfold in Iran. There is too much at stake, and they run too high a risk. Since inaction is unlikely, the question then becomes how to we help produce change without risking a return to imperialism. After all, if we don’t find adequate solutions that will allow America to protect its interests without trampling the voices and rights of other nations, then the war mongers will apply their solutions.

Obama is finding the answers now. His idea in Iran is to bypass government Internet censorship to connect the Iranian people with each other, and the world. These policies will soften the regime without violating sovereignty, requiring international cooperation, or risking war. In Haiti, his idea seems to be to rely on non-profits and NGOs. We’ll see if the people of Haiti are any better off in 10 years than they were before the earthquake. Still, these kinds of ideas will help shape tomorrow, for the better.

Of course, the governments of the western nations are also investigating more traditional avenues to create change in the Middle East. Concerns over the nuclear program have convinced the U.S. and many within the UN to pursue sanctions, a move that is hotly debated by the Green Movement, and outside experts. However, Obama seems to understand that the old way of doing trade sanctions doesn’t work. Instead, he is focusing on materials used by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Obama has even gone as far as to ease certain sanctions to ease the plight of the Iranian people, decrease isolation, and increase political pressure on the government of Iran. His administration seems to be taking a more humanitarian, pragmatic, and sophisticated road, even when using old tactics.

I’m not claiming that the Obama administration has gotten everything right, but the idea of engaging with the people of Iran, the people of China, the people of Sudan, and the people of Cuba, instead of their repressive governments, is a major step forward. It may not be enough, on it’s own, but it is the 21st century, more nuanced, less dangerous version of what took down the Soviet Union: a combination of the freedom of information and the people’s own rejection of a government that they believed was holding them down.