Speak for America, President Obama

(Bill Kristol). On September 2, 1939, in the wake of Hitler’s invasion of Poland, the British House of Commons met to rush through a military service bill. But the House was stunned when Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain said he wasn’t ready to ask for a declaration of war, that he was still working on a time limit for Hitler to respond to demands that the German army withdraw from Poland. As the Labour Party’s Arthur Greenwood rose for the Opposition, the anti-appeasement Conservative Leo Amery dramatically called out from the Tory backbenches: “Speak for England." This isn’t September 1939. But the developments in Tehran are a potentially big moment, signaling the possible transformation or at least reformation of the Iranian regime. American principles and American interests argue for support of the Iranian people in this crisis. And where is the American president? Silent. Some argue that the brave Iranians demonstrating for freedom and democracy would be better off if the American president somehow stayed out of the fight. Really? But Barack Obama is president. His statement wouldn’t be crafted by those dreaded neocons who vulgarly thought all people would like a chance to govern themselves and deserved some modicum of U.S. support in that endeavor. It would be written by subtle liberal internationalists, who would get the pitch and tone just right. It would be delivered by the popular and credible speaker-to-the-Muslim-world, Barack Obama. Does anyone really think that a strong Obama statement of solidarity with the Iranian people, and a strong rebuke to those who steal elections and shoot demonstrators, wouldn’t help the dissidents in Iran

This makes President Obama’s silence over the weekend and so far today about Iran all the more puzzling. So if I may be presumptuous, I say to President Obama: Speak out. Speak out multilaterally and carefully and sensitively. Speak out kindly and gently. But speak out. Speak for liberty. Speak for America.