David Paul Kuhn: Will Tiananmen Be Obama's Roadmap?
[David Paul Kuhn is the Chief Political Correspondent for RealClearPolitics and the author of The Neglected Voter. He can be reached at david@realclearpolitics.com]
Tehran is beginning to feel like Tiananmen.
The inspiring images of this Iranian green revolution, of the young striving for freedom, carries an eerie symmetry with Tiananmen Square. A brave student in a burka standing against armed police feels like that man who stood against those tanks.
We are left to wonder, will Iran recall this moment in two decades? Will Iran have changed? For all the change in China, the repression remains. Tiananmen was recalled this month only beyond China's borders.
Barack Obama came to Cairo on the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. It was a speech to engage the Muslim world and implicit with compromise. Vital actors toward peace included some of the most repressive regimes in the world, from Saudi Arabia to Egypt. Obama spoke professorially of liberty but, as expected, did not risk relations with Cairo by evoking the struggle of prominent Egyptian dissident Ayman Nour.
As Tiananmen unfolded, like today, the political left and right came together. Both political bases stood with the students. Top foreign affairs men in Congress, from liberal Representative Stephen Solarz to conservative Senator Jesse Helms called for the White House to stop arms sales and high-technology transfers.
George H.W. Bush and Secretary of State James Baker urged caution. Bush said that he "deeply deplore[d] the decision to use force against peaceful demonstrators and the consequent loss of life." But Baker added that the Chinese Government displayed ''a significant amount of restraint'' over the last few weeks in dealing with protesters.
Bush feared hurting relations with China more than standing up for the right thing. Just as Obama now fears, the repressor is the same party Bush had to engage when the worst repression was over.
And so Obama holds back. He does not want to respond harshly to the same Iranian regime that he hopes to work with on its nuclear program and the Muslim-Israeli peace process. And also like Bush, Obama realizes how sensitive foreign capitals are to American interference.
"It's not productive, given the history of U.S.-Iranian relations, to be seen as meddling--the U.S. president meddling in Iranian elections," Obama told reporters today. "What I will repeat and what I said yesterday is that when I see violence directed at peaceful protesters, when I see peaceful dissent being suppressed, wherever that takes place, it is of concern to me and it is of concern to the American people."
His Monday statement came after allies from Germany to France had already offered far stronger condemnation. Meanwhile, a state department spokesman on Monday sounded most like Baker in his restraint. He said Washington is "deeply troubled" but "I haven't used that word, ‘condemn,'" because the United States had to "see how things unfold."
Obama has left the hawkish idealism of George W. Bush, often termed neo-conservatism, and turned toward the realism of H.W. Bush...
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Tehran is beginning to feel like Tiananmen.
The inspiring images of this Iranian green revolution, of the young striving for freedom, carries an eerie symmetry with Tiananmen Square. A brave student in a burka standing against armed police feels like that man who stood against those tanks.
We are left to wonder, will Iran recall this moment in two decades? Will Iran have changed? For all the change in China, the repression remains. Tiananmen was recalled this month only beyond China's borders.
Barack Obama came to Cairo on the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. It was a speech to engage the Muslim world and implicit with compromise. Vital actors toward peace included some of the most repressive regimes in the world, from Saudi Arabia to Egypt. Obama spoke professorially of liberty but, as expected, did not risk relations with Cairo by evoking the struggle of prominent Egyptian dissident Ayman Nour.
As Tiananmen unfolded, like today, the political left and right came together. Both political bases stood with the students. Top foreign affairs men in Congress, from liberal Representative Stephen Solarz to conservative Senator Jesse Helms called for the White House to stop arms sales and high-technology transfers.
George H.W. Bush and Secretary of State James Baker urged caution. Bush said that he "deeply deplore[d] the decision to use force against peaceful demonstrators and the consequent loss of life." But Baker added that the Chinese Government displayed ''a significant amount of restraint'' over the last few weeks in dealing with protesters.
Bush feared hurting relations with China more than standing up for the right thing. Just as Obama now fears, the repressor is the same party Bush had to engage when the worst repression was over.
And so Obama holds back. He does not want to respond harshly to the same Iranian regime that he hopes to work with on its nuclear program and the Muslim-Israeli peace process. And also like Bush, Obama realizes how sensitive foreign capitals are to American interference.
"It's not productive, given the history of U.S.-Iranian relations, to be seen as meddling--the U.S. president meddling in Iranian elections," Obama told reporters today. "What I will repeat and what I said yesterday is that when I see violence directed at peaceful protesters, when I see peaceful dissent being suppressed, wherever that takes place, it is of concern to me and it is of concern to the American people."
His Monday statement came after allies from Germany to France had already offered far stronger condemnation. Meanwhile, a state department spokesman on Monday sounded most like Baker in his restraint. He said Washington is "deeply troubled" but "I haven't used that word, ‘condemn,'" because the United States had to "see how things unfold."
Obama has left the hawkish idealism of George W. Bush, often termed neo-conservatism, and turned toward the realism of H.W. Bush...