"I love George Bush, but I would hate him if he bombed my country." [View All]

Timothy Garton Ash wrote this very interesting inside account of life in Iran just after the election of Ahmadinejad last fall. The whole article is worth reading, but here's an especially relevant snippet for the present:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18390


What of Iran's nuclear program? That was not a pressing concern for the young people I met. None of them raised the issue in conversation with me. When I asked them about it, they fell into two groups. The first group felt that Iran, a proud but insecure nation flanked by neighbors already possessing nuclear weapons, has a right not just to civilian nuclear power but also to nuclear weapons. The second felt that a democratic Iran should undoubtedly have such a right, but they would rather this repressive regime did not obtain nuclear weapons. Yet both insisted with equal vehemence that an American or Israeli bombing of nuclear installations, let alone an Iraq-style invasion, would be a wholly unacceptable response to Iran's nuclear ambitions.

"I love George Bush," said one thoughtful and well-educated young woman, as we sat in the Tehran Kentucky Chicken restaurant, "but I would hate him if he bombed my country." She would oppose even a significant tightening of economic sanctions on those grounds. A perceptive local analyst reinforced the point. Who or what, he asked, could give this regime renewed popular support, especially among the young? "Only the United States!"

If, however, Europe and the United States can avoid that trap; if whatever we do to slow down the nucleariza-tion of Iran does not end up merely slowing down the democratization of Iran; and if, at the same time, we can find policies that help the gradual social emancipation and eventual self-liberation of Young Persia, then the long-term prospects are good. The Islamic revolution, like the French and Russian revolutions before it, has been busy devouring its own children. One day, its grandchildren will devour the revolution.

—October 6, 2005