Iran So Far Away

I've been in Deadline Hell the last week or so, so I haven't been able to follow anything closely. Over the weekend I saw that plenty of people are all up at arms about what's going on in Iran. Neocons are taking the events there as a call to fire up the bombers, righties want to figure a way to pin this on Obama, and people like Andrew Sullivan breathlessly relay every last twitter-feed as evidence of some full-blown revolution sweeping the country.

Here's my unvarnished and uninformed opinion...

None of these other people know much more than I do at this point. Take Sullivan for example: Photographs or personal accounts with no wider context are only slightly better than worthless. He paints a picture of a sea of Iranian citizens storming the castle and that the Iranian government as we knew it is over, yet he has readers on his sight claiming that most of Tehran is business as usual...Which is it? Calling for others to express support for what's happening there, yet overstating the situation could send people into a fucking buzzsaw. If there aren't really 500,000 other people marching to give cover, then there could be real problems for the people on the street.

Too many bloggers seem anxious to use the cracked skulls of Iranian protestors as a step up to proclaim "the death of the traditional media!" as well, and it's pretty unseemly. I don't doubt there is value in the man-on-the-street report, but come on... People in Europe might've assumed Yonkers was burning if these people were blogging the L.A. Riots.

As for how Obama is supposed to react to all of this? I think "troubled by events" is sufficient. It's not up to us to second-guess or try to have an impact on what happens in Iran. That last thing he should do is give Ahmadinejad a claim that "America is meddling." Obama needs to keep in mind that whoever emerges will be who he needs to negotiate with—and not to try and rig the game. And Joe Biden needs to shut his hole.

Sure, it'd be swell if Ahmadinejad lost in a clean election and handed over power as readily as Al Gore, but how fucking likely was that? It's up to the people in Iran to decide if they've had enough of this shit. There's been talk of a young, progresive movement in Iran for years—let this be their moment. Interference from outside can only make things worse, illegitimate, uglier, etc.

As far as I'm concerned, the "leading democracy on the planet" just had it's own Presidential election stolen a mere nine years ago, so we should shut the fuck up.

UPDATE: Hilzoy does a much better job articulating what I cursed and rambled about above... It's a fantastic piece.

If This is "Looking Forward," Then I Don't Like What I See

The initial statements by Obama regarding the reluctance or refusal to prosecute those parties involved in the Bush Torture Regime seemed to refer specifically only to the CIA officers who, one could argue, were told what they were doing was both necessary and legal. As Hilzoy says...

I'm uneasy about prosecuting people who rely on the OLC, which they ought to be able to rely on. (I think that relying on legal interpretations offered by the people charged with interpreting the law for the executive branch is very different from "just following orders.")

I don't agree with that completely, and think that's far too lenient. I think those officers should be removed from their posts and forced to testify against those who devised this illegal system. They might not go to jail, but they don't get to walk away clean and they will serve some function.

Further consideration, in no small part to Smitty's comment, leads me to make a sort of Faustian bargain to sacrifice the smaller fry for the bigger fish: If fully exposing this whole affair and nailing Bybee, Yoo, Addington, Bradbury—and, yes, Bush and Cheney—means granting immunity down the chain, I can live with that.

What I cannot accept is this [from today's White House press briefing]:

Q: So I understand, you're saying that people in the CIA who followed through in what they were told was legal, they should not be prosecuted. But why not the Bush administration lawyers who, in the eyes of a lot of your supporters on the left, twisted the law -- why are they not being held accountable?

MR. GIBBS: The President is focused on looking forward, that's why.

Fuck that. That is effectively stamping "APPROVED" on what has happened. It is setting precedent, and it is making clear that people in power are above the law. That cannot stand.

I'll let the better writer take it from here...

You know what? I'm focused on looking forward too. And as I gaze into my crystal ball, I see a world in which members of the executive branch take it for granted that they can do whatever they want with impunity. Why not break the law? Why not eavesdrop on Americans? Why not torture people? Why not detain citizens indefinitely without charges? Heck, why not impose martial law and make yourself dictator for life? There is nothing to stop the people who make these decisions. They have nothing to fear. Because once they've made them, their actions are back there, in the past that no one ever wants to look at.

[...] I do not want a world in which members of my government can break the law with impunity. I do not want a world in which some people are above the law. In a perfect world, we would not need to prosecute people to achieve these results. But the past eight years have shown us that we don't live in that world."