As ironic as it might sound, it seems after Obama’s election US politics is back to the first square. The battle between Reagan and Clinton’s legacies is on and alive. One wonders why on earth in the wide, broad, and fertile landscape of US politics we should manage to starve ourselves to death sucking on the empty containers of Clinton and Reagan’s juice boxes, like there is no tomorrow.
It wasn’t enough to see an eight-year ruling of one of the fiercest Reagan fans pulling outdated and failed policies out of his back pocket that resulted in setting the planet on fire. Now it is time to get back to Clinton’s legacy of decapitating the world quietly with a big smile that stretches from Iraq’s darkest age of sanctions resulting in half a million death of Iraqi children due to lack of medicine and malnutrition. The other end of the smile have lingered over Iranians head for the longest time.
Bush tried to copy and paste Reagan’s doctrine against the Soviets in order to stop Iran from whatever we would like to name it today. Sorry I haven’t been following the media these days. Are we still after stopping Iran to obtain nuclear arms or to keep them away from rivaling Israel, or slap them for human rights violations, or stop them from interfering with the Mid-East peace progress? Obviously semi-Reaganist policies did not work and resulted in empowering the Iranian government furthe.
What is the lesson we’ve learned so far? Perhaps the answer lies in the eyes of the dinosaurs in Washington who even predate Reagan era dinosaurs, the Clinton-Kissinger groupies. From what I see, these happy crowds ironically still see the world in a black-and-white fashion just like George Bush. From their perspective, if Reagan’s policies don’t work, for sure Clinton’s will do the magic. Needless to say these policies are condemned to fail but I am afraid the deaf and blind (but loud) politicians in Washington never get it.
But why should I care and bother entangling myself with this twisted mess? Because I want to let you my fellow hamvatans know that the result of this election does not automatically translate into fulfill any of your wishes. There is no comfort zone and there will be a ton of hard work ahead of us. Regardless of the result of the US election, that we celebrated dearly, naively and perhaps prematurely, we should think hard how we can prevent the US policies towards Iran to be hijacked again.
I voted for Obama but for the hopeful message of change not seeing the repeated scenes in US politics. I recommend Mr. Obama to visit Iranian modern history especially the part that relates to President Khatami. Believe it or not, the last 30 years of Iranian modern history resembles much of US 200 years of existence.
Mr. Khatami came with a broad message of hope and change. Iranians who were tired of old politics let themselves loose and tried to believe in another hallow slogan. As quickly as Mr. Khatami was raised into the hearts and minds of ordinary Iranian people, his creditability plummeted at the end of his second term. He failed to deliver the message that he once made us believe.
As a very ordinary Iranian-American I like very much that Mr. Obama succeeds in all his noble goals. I strongly believe in American values and I firmly believe Mr. Obama will make America once again a strong symbol of democracy. I am not sure what his advisors are telling him about Iran but I am sure he’ll understand this sentence: the real news rests within the real people. I advise him to be in touch with Iranian-American community and try to hear us in order to have a successful policy towards Iran and the rest of the world.
Majority of Iranian-Americans elected Obama for many reasons, including changing US policies towards Iran and to open up US-Iran talks, where we as one of the most suffered and silently endured ethnic community around the globe know this the best that, the pressure against Iran in any shape or form will not result in anything substantial. US shall come with open arms and embrace IRANIAN PEOPLE. If that happens I guarantee you that Iranian people also do the same, if not more.
Sanctions will not hurt the Iranian government one bit since the IRI holds the vast majority of Iranian wealth; also Iran geographically is a very large country connected to the landscape of the West, East and Far East Asia and forms the foundation of one of the most vital regions of the world. Sanctions will only hurt IRANIAN PEOPLE who are only the victims in this feud.
The fact is that in 1980 a small group of radical Iranians took 52 Americans hostage and since then 70 million Iranians have been hostage to US policies. Isn’t it time for change yet and to set them free? Can’t we change these old and rustic policies that eventually make ordinary people suffer? Can’t we think outside the box again? Can’t we remove the imaginary table that Bush brought to the White House in which it holds force and sanctions against Iran and replace it with powerful American belief in freedom and happiness? Can’t we let people talk rather than spraying words into their faces telling them they are so incompetent that they need a guardian?
I still believe, “Yes, we can!”
God bless!
