Since the 1979 Revolution that toppled the US-backed Shah of Iran and installed the Ayatollah Khomeini as that nation’s supreme leader, relations between our two nations have ranged somewhere between frosty and non-existent. However, over the course the past week developments in Iran have yielded a remarkable reaction here in the United States: an unmistakable embrace of the Iranian people and their cause.
The questionable results of last week’s Iranian Presidential election have generated a wide array of surprising second and third order effects around the world. Yet among the most surprising may be the fervor with which the American public has clamored for information about daily happenings in Iran from newspapers, television and particularly the internet. It is important to note that this desire for a constant stream of news goes well beyond the Iranian-American community.
To me, one reason for this phenomenon is simple: Americans embrace freedom. The support of the American public for Iranians’ demands of a more open government is natural and unmistakable. As Peggy Noonan wrote this week in the Wall Street Journal, there is simply no need to ask whose side we Americans are on in the struggle for greater political freedom.
Perhaps even more crucially, however, the recent events in Iran have put the lie to the oft-repeated claims of Iran’s rulers that Americans hate Iran and its people. Too frequently, the threat of western influence is used as a club by Iran’s dictators to keep their subjects in check. What this week’s events have revealed is the truth that it is only Iran’s oppressive government, not its people, that is opposed by the United States. Indeed, the more we have seen brave Iranians take to the streets of their cities calling for their government to recognize their right to a free and fair vote, the more transfixed the American people have become by their struggle.
As these events unfold, it is undeniable that the American people will be on the side of those who seek to exercise their basic human rights. One need only to look at the television or internet to know that in Iran, as elsewhere, the American people will support and encourage those citizens who peaceably assemble, make their voices heard, and thereby take their future into their own hands.
