Iran's Stolen Election Has Sparked an Uprising -- What Should the U.S. Do?

By Stephen Zunes, AlterNet. Posted June 15, 2009.

In any case, the Obama administration does not seem to be very interested in promoting such a “people power” revolution. On “Meet the Press” this Sunday, Vice-President Joe Biden spoke about Iran with the assumption that Ahamdinejad would remain president, blithely referring to the incumbent who had just stolen the election as “durable.” The most criticism Biden could muster was his observation that even if the election was won “fair and square,” Ahmadinejad still had “domestic critics” (quite an understatement for a country that may be on the verge of a popular insurrection.) The most Secretary of State Hillary Clinton could say, even as the extent of the fraud was becoming apparent, was that the United States hoped that the outcome of Iranian vote reflected the “genuine will and desire” of the Iranian people.

Despite the growing repression from its government, the negative consequences of sanctions and threats against their country, and Washington’s disinterest in their struggle, the best hope for Iran comes from Iranian civil society. It is the Iranian people alone who have the right and the capability to reform or bring down the country’s increasingly illegitimate regime and establish a more just and democratic society. Whether it will be in the short-term or the long-term, freedom will come to Iran. When it does, however, it will likely be in spite of -- rather than because of -- the policies of the United States.

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Stephen Zunes is a professor of Politics and chair of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of San Francisco and serves as a senior policy analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus.

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