December 7th is also a significant date in Iranian history. Known as National Student Day, students annually mourn the death of three university students slain by Iranian police in 1953 during the brutal regime of the Shah.
This year the mournful commemoration took on a different tone, and was marked by demonstrations on university campuses across Iran in protest of the dictatorial theocracy ruled by Ayatollah Ali Khameni and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Many of the protests turned violent resulting in beatings, tear gas, rock throwing by protestors, and sweeping arrests. Human rights abuses abound.
Adding fuel to the unrest, was Ahmadinejad's reelection last June seen by many as fraudulent, because government officials took the ballots to a government and surrounded it with soldiers. Government officials "counted" the ballots in secret.
This has fueled much dissent among the university students and intellectuals across Iran, who supported Ahmadinejad's challenger, Mir Hossein Mousavi, regarded by many as a liberal reformer. Meanwhile, Ali Khameni has been consolidating power among Islamic fundamentalist throughout the country.
University students are not the only group in Iran dissatisfied with the dictatorial regime. Iran has a small sunni minority, who suffer daily discrimination in many ways, and are forbidden from holding public office.
Iran also has a population of four million Kurds who live in the northwest region bordering Iraq. Forty five million Kurds inhabit the Earth and are the largest ethnic group without their own nation--more than the Palestinians. Kurds have long dreamed of a united Kurdistan, and if such a nation were to encompass all Kurds in their contiguous region, it would include parts of Iraq and southeastern Turkey. Kurds in Turkey have a history of insurgent violence against the Turkish government. Since Turkey is a NATO ally, the United States policy has been to deny the Kurds their dream of a united nation.
But back to Iran, where there exists much dissent and unrest against the regime from many different groups. During the last series of protests several weeks ago, Iranian protestors chanted, "Mr. Obama, are you with us, or are you with them?" Clearly this was a plea for help.
The United States has the capability to support this unrest. Such meddling was commonplace in South America during the sixties and seventies. The United States has agencies and people with skills to help dispossessed people overthrow tyrannical regimes.
The Iranian regime seeks to obtain a nuclear weapon and has stated that Israel has no right to exist, and oh, by the way, the Holocaust never happened. To this point in world history, most governments that have obtained the nuclear weapon have been reasonably responsible with it. However, such a regime whose leadership engages in groupthink this far out on the lunatic fringe must never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon.
Further, the Iranian regime engages in proxy wars. They are currently arming and training the Shia uprising on the Saudi-Yemeni border. Iran's support to train and finance Palestinians against Israel is long well-known. Closer to home, weapons and munitions with Iranian markings are commonly discovered on our battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Considering the danger that this regime poses to the United States, to Israel, and to the region, wouldn't it make sense for us to support the unrest in Iran, help liberate the Iranian people, and disarm a nuclear threat all at once? After all, if the Iranian regime is engaged in two proxy wars against the United States, can't we at least return the favor? But our President Obama is loathe to think this way.
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