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Iran Is Not Poland (And Other Blindingly Obvious Truths)

So it is possible for Jeffrey Lord to write about something other than racism. Then again, maybe he should stick to what he knows. Apparently unaware that he has rendered his entire anti-Obama argument irrelevant with just one quote, Lord cites Reagan from 1981 regarding the Solidarity strike: I wanted to be sure we did […]

So it is possible for Jeffrey Lord to write about something other than racism. Then again, maybe he should stick to what he knows. Apparently unaware that he has rendered his entire anti-Obama argument irrelevant with just one quote, Lord cites Reagan from 1981 regarding the Solidarity strike:

I wanted to be sure we did nothing to impede this process and everything we could to spur it along.

Reagan was making sense when he said that, and there is a reasonable argument that this is exactly Obama’s approach to the Iranian election. In the 1981 episode, it may have made sense and been entirely appropriate to speak out on behalf of Soldarity as they were being repressed by the Soviets, which does not mean that it would always be the right response in every situation. Despite the problems with having applied the wrong lessons from 1989 to Iraq, which so many war supporters expected would be readily transformed into a liberal democracy like so many countries in eastern Europe, Lord once again applies the experience of American policy in eastern Europe to the Near East. Just like his fellow war supporters, Lord gets it wrong.

As others have probably already observed, there is a difference between a native workers’ uprising against a system sustained by a foreign military presence and an internal political conflict among members of the same nation. There are historical differences between the two countries, and significant differences in the relationships with Western powers. There was little chance that Polish nationalists would be offended by Western expressions of support against the Soviets, and it mattered that the Polish view of Western intervention was not that it had happened too frequently in their past but that it had been too lacking. While the Poles looked, usually in vain, to the West for direct aid during its many partitions and occupations, Iranians have been on the receiving end of partitions into spheres of influence and direct or indirect domination via proxy governments during the modern era. Practically all of these were orchestrated and supported by Western governments and their allies. That makes direct British and American involvement in this controversy much trickier, and it requires a more subtle, careful response. American critics of the President have remarked on the more forceful statements by the French President and the German Chancellor. They have the luxury of not having the burden of past wrongdoing against Iran, and indeed the Germans in particular enjoy a significant trade relationship with Iran, which puts Merkel’s critical remarks in an entirely different context from remarks made by the President of the United States, whose predecessor surrounded Iran with war zones and military deployments and declared his intention to topple the current regime.

Had we had the same kind of history with the Poles that we have with the Iranians, our expressions of support might very well have been as ill-advised and counterproductive as expressions of support for the protesters in Iran today by Washington would be. Had our government labeled Poland as evil just a few years before after having imposed sanctions on it for decades, statements in support of Solidarity might not have been as welcome or as encouraging as they were. Of course, any comparison between the two is bound to be misleading, because Reagan was speaking out against the abuses of the Soviet imperial system as part of a prolonged struggle with another superpower. The circumstances were vastly different. The principle that Reagan articulated, which was “to be sure we did nothing to impede this process,” was the right one, but it is bound to have a different application in a country that is nothing like Poland.

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