First of all, before I get rebuffed by the right side of my readers, let me clearly explain that I am not supportive of the President’s lack of action on the Iranian elections. However, what exactly is Barack Obama supposed to do?
Is the President of the United States supposed to disregard the sovereignty of a nation-state because some of their people are demonstrating against the outcome of a national election? Not too long ago, our country faced a “constitutional crisis” of our own and I don’t remember Vladmir Putin or Jiang Zemin discussing the legitimacy of the American election in the fall of 2000.
President Obama has enough problems on his plate. In foreign policy alone, North Korea is far and away more antagonistic than Iran ever was. Domestically, Obama is trying to revive national health care while his stimulus package has failed to jump start the ailing economy.
Iran has been a constant problem area for the United States since Kermit Roosevelt, son of President Teddy Roosevelt and C.I.A. station chief in Tehran, helped to engineer a coup of Prime Minister Muhammed Mossadeq in 1953.
The U.S. has meddled in the political life of Iran longer than President Obama has lived. The American people would have been outraged if another country had attempted to sway the 2000 election. For once in our history, let’s leave the Iranian elections to the Iranian people.
Faculty, Department of Political Science, Towson University. Graduate from Liberty University Seminary.