Yeah, what a shame we don't have someone with the sterling reputation in the world as president when Iranians took to the streets in opposition to their mullah overlords.
Wait. What?
Though many media outlets are reluctant to admit it, freedom protestors throughout the world rely on a positive, supporting reaction by the U.S. president, his administration and other free world leaders.
I've seen several Obama Administration apologists claim President Obama supported the Green Revolution. In truth Obama dithered and his dither is to his eternal discredit. Belatedly, he gave verbal support to Green Revolution demands, after regime thugs and police beat and arrested Iran's vulnerable protestors.
In contrast, the Trump Administration has quickly backed the protests, and backed them with diplomatic and rhetorical spine.
Someone with the credential of the left who passed the whole global test turned his back on protesters in 2009? Huh. Yeah, President Obama believed that abandoning the protesters was a good bargain if he could negotiate a nuclear deal with the oppressors. Was that the hope or the change?
I think the liberal complaints about Trump's support are wrong. But based on their own logic, President Obama should be condemned by liberals for his "open hand" policy to the mullah regime that led him--he with so much prestige in the world--to stand by silently until the protests were crushed.
Anyway, the Iranians claim the protests are suppressed:
Iran's army chief said on Thursday police forces had already quelled anti-government unrest that has killed 21 people but that his troops were ready to intervene if needed, official media reported, as new state-sponsored protests were held.
If I had to bet, I'd say that is the likely outcome. But let's wait and see how the Iranian people react to the latest round of suppression.
UPDATE: Is the media downplaying the protests to defend Obama (and avoid giving Trump any victory)?
Hard to say, but it is possible given that Iran's "deplorables" are the people in the protests:
[Today] there is no nationwide political leadership; the origins of the protests are economic and organised on behalf of the growing ranks of the unemployed and marginalised and the demands are unfocused.
Which probably means the protests will be suppressed.
Or will leadership rise up from the working class or from the middle classes who led the 2009 protests, and give the protests focus and a way to keep them going?
UPDATE: Whether or not the protests grow and succeed in overthrowing the mullahs, it is good to be on the right side of the struggle--which means publicly standing against the mullah government and ratifying the aspirations of the protesters.
UPDATE: In protest news, Iran has reportedly brought in their loyal Iraqi militias:
Sources in Ahwaz told Al Arabiya.net that Iran has deployed members of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization forces to suppress the ongoing anti-regime protests.
According to sources, they have been deployed alongside Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and security forces in the streets of Abadan and Khorramshahr and in Al-Thawra neighborhood in Ahvaz.
I wondered if Iran would take that step. The southwest is where Iran's Arab minority lives.
Iran has also diverted Afghan units of their Shia foreign legion dedicated to Syria in order to quell protests, according to the article.
