It's really difficult to express how counterproductive a House resolution in support of Iran's protesters would be. As Dana points out, the protesters aren't protesting the Islamic state, they're protesting the election results. And as Tim explains well in his piece today, the viability of the reform movement hinges on its loyalty to the 1979 revolution. Any explicit expression of support from the United States would completely undermine the protesters by allowing the ruling regime to paint the protesters as the counterrevolutionary tools of a foreign power, which would in turn justify any course of action taken to crack down on them. This has a great deal to do with our having deposed the democratically elected prime minister of Iran prior to installing a brutal autocrat in his place.
This dynamic isn't actually that difficult to understand. An endorsement from the U.S. would be like Al Qaeda expressing support for an American political candidate. So I'm beginning to wonder if the GOP pressure on the White House to express open support of the reformers is just a cynical ploy to avoid an outcome in which the protesters actually prevail, which would undermine the right's rationale for a bombing campaign against Iran. President Ahmadinejad's bluster has made him an enabling force for America's hawks, they may simply not want to lose him. Alternately, the right may simply be so caught up in the narrative of America as a force for goodness and freedom that they're incapable of understanding that in Iran, we're simply not seen that way.
-- A. Serwer
