Matthew Yglesias on how the conservative take on Iran has never been focused on the well-being of the Iranian people:
Conservative hawks, who just a few weeks ago were eager to drop bombs on Iran, have not hesitated to take advantage of the recent political unrest to launch criticisms on President Barack Obama for being insufficiently concerned with the welfare of the Iranian people. In its most extreme guises, this criticism has taken the form of National Review writers accusing Obama of having an active preference for tyranny. Victor Davis Hanson alleges that Obama is “almost more at ease with virulent anti-Westerners.” Andy McCarthy deems Obama “steeped in Leftist ideology, fueled in anger and resentment” and thus eager to embrace theocracy. However, McCarthy continues, the president recognizes that it “would have been political suicide to issue a statement supportive of the mullahs” and thus chose to mask his hidden pro-dictatorship views behind a veneer of calm and restraint.
These are outliers (though they were published on the Web site of the right’s flagship publication), but toned-down versions of the same basic complaint can be found all over the place. Interestingly, actual Iranians seemed to have no such concerns. Instead, they generally supported the White House’s view that heavy-handed foreign intervention into the crisis would be counterproductive.
