Victor Davis Hanson:

Iraq is proving to be amazingly resilient, not only functioning as a democracy, but by withstanding the best efforts of Iran to kill it off, proving destabilizing to Iran itself.

By removing Saddam, and trying to isolate Ahmadinejad and appeal to the Iranian people, Bush at least tried to prep the landscape for democratic change.

In contrast, Obama’s past siren calls to quit Iraq, the “optional” war, his snubbing of Maliki, his ahistorical efforts to charm the Islamic Street, and apologies to theocratic Iran while lavishing attention on Ahmadinejad put him on the wrong side of history.

If Obama were wise, he would get out pronto a statement condemning the anti-democratic violence of the Iranian government, and suggesting it follow the Iraq example of free and internationally inspected elections.

At some point, one should see that moral equivalence and multicultural non-judgementalism, however catchy for the moment, are as stupid as they are amoral, and will put the U.S in a foolish, “make it up as we go along” position.

“One” should see that, but they never do. And Obama clearly isn’t wise, and his non-stop criticism of establishing a democracy in Iraq, which got him the nomination last year, puts him in an awkward moral position to now point to it as a beacon of true hope and change in the Middle East. But that’s what the nation voted for.

[Update a few minutes later]

Obama, then and now:

In 2008 he sounded serious and committed to stopping the Iranian nuclear threat and was candid about the nature of the regime. In Cairo, all that was gone. Nary a direct word of criticism of the Iranian regime (Holocaust denial was never tied to the Iranians and was covered in a separate section of his address). In 2008 he was telling Iran it would have no nuclear capability; in 2009 he was declaring no country could tell Iran it couldn’t have a nuclear capability. A complete reversal in tone and substance.

It’s almost like he’ll say anything to get into power, after which his true agenda becomes clear.

And in this case, of course, the Jews who voted for him were the rubes (as are the astounding number of Jews who continue to vote for Democrats in general).

[Update a couple minutse later]

“Hope and change” for me, but not for thee. At least if thee is Iranian. Yes, this administration will probably cheerfully sell out the Iranian people for a “deal” with the mullahs. Which will be useless for both us and the Iranian people, but it will make the diplomats happy.

[Update a few minutes later]

Who did you vote for, Marty? I’d like to know, too.

Is the country on the verge, or already in, a civil war? Michael Totten is on the case. Hit his tip jar if you can.

[Update a couple hours later]

More over at Gateway Pundit.

[Late afternoon update]

More from Michael Totten: Insurrection, Day Two.

More news at PJM. This is interesting:

There are widespread reports of police and security forces, around Tehran and other big cities where there have been demonstrations, who are not Iranian and either speak Persian with a very pronounced Arab accent or speak no Persian at all.

From Iraq? Or elsewhere?

[Update early evening]

Iran doesn’t have elections — it has circuses:

Stalin would be proud. But even his Soviet Union eventually succumbed to the dissidents, and while the regime has most all of the guns, the chains, the clubs, the tear gas cannisters, and the torture chambers, there are tens of millions of Iranians who hate the regime. The question is whether they are prepared to face down the Basij, the police, and the Revolutionary Guards. It is usually a matter of numbers in these cases: if a million people gather in front of the Supreme Leader’s palace and demand freedom, while half that number make the same demand in front of the government buildings in Isfahan, Shiraz, Tabriz and Mashad, they might win.

Until quite recently, the Iranians did not believe they could do such a thing on their own. They believed they needed outside support, above all American support, in order to succeed. They thought that Bushitlercheney would provide that support, and they were bitterly disappointed. But nobody believes that Obama will help them, and they must know that they are on their own.

Any hope they might have had in the Obama White House was quickly dismissed in the administration’s two statements on the matter. The first came from the president himself, anticipating a Mousavi victory (it is too soon to speculate on the source of this happy thought), and of course, in his narcissistic way, taking personal credit for it:

“We are excited to see what appears to be a robust debate taking place in Iran and obviously, after the speech that I made in Cairo, we tried to send a clear message that we think there’s a possibility of change and, ultimately, the election is for the Iranians to decide but just as what has been true in Lebanon, what can be true in Iran as well, is that you’re seeing people looking at new possiblities, and whoever ends up winning the election in Iran, the fact that there’s been a robust debate hopefully will help advance our ability to engage them in new ways.”

I’ve reread the Cairo Sermon, and I can’t find a single word calling for freedom for the Iranian people. Au contraire, Obama’s words about Iran were penitent, apologizing for the American role, back in 1953, in removing what the president called an elected government (Mossadeq, that is. Except that he was appointed by the shah, not elected at all). But then, history is not his strong suit.

No, it never has been.

On the other hand, as Michael points out, the Bush administration never covered itself in glory with Iran policy, either. There was a potentially huge pro-American youth movement there that they never engaged. I though that one of the (many) purposes of removing Saddam Hussein was to intimidate the Iranian regime and encourage its opponents, but that was never obvious from administration policy post 2003. Colin Powell never really bought into that grand strategy, and perhaps Condi didn’t either. Seriously, this time, I say that I blame George Bush.