There are some interesting comparisons between Iran’s latest revolutionary movement and Poland’s Solidarity movement in the 1980s. Western assistance came both vocally and covert — via American companies providing Western intelligence agencies with printing presses and other equipment and utilities to assist the organization of the Polish protesters. The movement was already there and in full swing, the West just provided a little extra support where it counted.

Read the comparison in the WSJ today. Here’s the conclusion — it’s not too late for Obama and the West.

All of which means that there are opportunities for the Obama Administration to exploit, provided it envisions a democratic and peaceful Iran as a strategic American aim. That doesn’t mean military confrontation with the mullahs. But it does require taking every opportunity to apply consistent pressure on Iran while exploiting its internal tensions and contradictions.

“I often wondered why Ronald Reagan did this, taking the risks he did, in supporting us at Solidarity,” Mr. Walesa wrote in these pages after Reagan died in 2004. “Let’s remember that it was a time of recession in the U.S. and a time when the American public was more interested in their own domestic affairs. It took a leader with a vision to convince them that there are greater things worth fighting for.”

The circumstances aren’t so different. With similar vision and leadership, the endgame could be the same.

The following is from a Washington Post article titled, “Arab Activists Watch Iran And Wonder: ‘Why Not Us?’”

Across the Arab world, Iran’s massive opposition protests have triggered a wave of soul-searching and conflicting emotions. Many question why their own reform movements are unable to rally people to rise up against unpopular authoritarian regimes. In Egypt, the cradle of what was once the Arab world’s most ambitious push for democracy, Iran’s protests have served as a reminder of how much the notion has unraveled under President Hosni Mubarak, who has ruled the country for 30 years.

“I am extremely jealous,” said Nayra El Sheikh, 28, a blogger and Sharkawy’s wife. “I can’t help but think: Why not us? What do they have that we don’t have? Do they have more guts?”

The frustration comes against a backdrop of deep-rooted skepticism among pro-democracy activists that U.S. policies under President Obama will help transform the region, despite his vow to engage the Muslim world in a highly publicized speech here last month. Some view Obama’s response to Iran’s protests, muted until Tuesday, as a harbinger of U.S. attitudes toward their own efforts to reform their political systems. The Egyptian government, they note, is a key American ally, and U.S. pressure on Egypt for reforms began subsiding in the last years of the Bush administration.

“When Obama does not take a stance, the very next day these oppressive regimes will regard this as a signal. This is a test for his government,” said Ayman Nour, a noted Egyptian opposition politician who was recently released from jail. “If they can turn a blind eye to their enemy, they can turn a blind eye to any action here in Egypt.”

The Obama administration has been worried all this time about interjecting too much into the Iranian election, but as Michael Goldfarb has noted, with an Iranian population mostly under the age of 30, tired of their oppressive theocracy, and looking next door to several successful and fair elections in post-Hussein Iraq, it’s far more credible that we the West should be worried about not interjecting ourselves in Iran’s affairs enough.

Seriously, a grander diversion from the Iranian quasi-revolution than Michael Jackson’s death couldn’t have been masterminded by a decade worth of planning by Hezbollah.

Here’s Michael Goldfarb:

The left wanted Obama to keep his mouth shut for fear of undermining the protesters by allowing the regime to portray them as U.S. pawns. Well, at what point does Obama risk alienating a future generation of Iranians by sitting on the sidelines as they get butchered in the streets?

But then, do liberals stand for liberty? For me, but not for thee?

Americans, European Union, international community, this government is not definitely — is definitely not elected by the majority of Iranians. So it’s illegal. Do not recognize it. Stop trading with them. Impose much more sanctions against them. My message…to the international community, especially I’m addressing President Obama directly – how can a government that doesn’t recognize its people’s rights and represses them brutally and mercilessly have nuclear activities? This government is a huge threat to global peace. Will a wise man give a sharp dagger to an insane person? We need your help international community. Don’t leave us alone.

– Iranian protester to CNN’s John Roberts and Kiran Chetry.

President Obama watches CNN, doesn’t he?

Being president is about making decisions — it’s why we call it the “Executive” branch of government. You know, all during the Bush presidency the political left promoted the argument that one of the primary faults of conservatives, particularly the “Neo-cons,” is that they only saw things in black and white. This argument is, of course, a steaming pile of excrement. It’s not that conservatives only see black and white, they see the shades of gray and understand complexities just fine. They just don’t use the “shades of gray” as an excuse for inaction and ineptitude. Sometimes you just gotta make a damn decision. And this is especially true if one is the American president.

Browsing the internet coverage of the protests in Iran (indeed, the very descriptor “protest” has since become an understatement to say the least) it seems that the grays are disappearing and the white and black of the conflict is becoming readily clear. No, Iranian opposition leader Hossein Mousavi isn’t Sam Adams. He probably isn’t even a Mikhail Gorbachev. And perhaps he’s just as much the anti-Semitic racist and holocaust denier that Iranian “president” Ahmadinejad is. But so what? The United States, under better leadership from our president, could better support the people of Iran without giving legitimacy to the Iranian theocracy, whether under Mousavi or not. As Charles Krauthammer explains below, this could be — should be — a grand opportunity to create real change in Iran. Or is change for he, but not for thee?

Obama’s nuance is now to a fault. It’s a sick statement that the outrage from leaders in France and Germany, for instance, have been far stronger than Obama. No conservative is saying send in the troops. But the bland message from Obama becomes at some point complicity and quiet support of the Iranian regime. Perhaps that’s not fair but it’s going to become truth if Obama isn’t careful. The fact is the Ayatollah is going to blame Obama, the West, the “Zionist media,” the CIA, Capitalism, and every other bogey man under the sun no matter if Obama takes a stand or not.

Here’s Krauthammer:

Moreover, this incipient revolution is no longer about the election. Obama totally misses the point. The election allowed the political space and provided the spark for the eruption of anti-regime fervor that has been simmering for years and awaiting its moment. But people aren’t dying in the street because they want a recount of hanging chads in suburban Isfahan. They want to bring down the tyrannical, misogynist, corrupt theocracy that has imposed itself with the very baton-wielding goons that today attack the demonstrators.

This started out about election fraud. But like all revolutions, it has far outgrown its origins. What’s at stake now is the very legitimacy of this regime — and the future of the entire Middle East.

This revolution will end either as a Tiananmen (a hot Tiananmen with massive and bloody repression or a cold Tiananmen with a finer mix of brutality and co-optation) or as a true revolution that brings down the Islamic Republic.

The latter is improbable but, for the first time in 30 years, not impossible. Imagine the repercussions. It would mark a decisive blow to Islamist radicalism, of which Iran today is not just standard-bearer and model, but financier and arms supplier. It would do to Islamism what the collapse of the Soviet Union did to communism — leave it forever spent and discredited.

In the region, it would launch a second Arab spring. The first in 2005 — the expulsion of Syria from Lebanon, the first elections in Iraq and early liberalization in the Gulf states and Egypt — was aborted by a fierce counterattack from the forces of repression and reaction, led and funded by Iran.

Now, with Hezbollah having lost elections in Lebanon and with Iraq establishing the institutions of a young democracy, the fall of the Islamist dictatorship in Iran would have an electric and contagious effect. The exception — Iraq and Lebanon — becomes the rule. Democracy becomes the wave. Syria becomes isolated; Hezbollah and Hamas, patronless. The entire trajectory of the region is reversed.

All hangs in the balance. The Khamenei regime is deciding whether to do a Tiananmen. And what side is the Obama administration taking? None. Except for the desire that this “vigorous debate” (press secretary Robert Gibbs’s disgraceful euphemism) over election “irregularities” not stand in the way of U.S.-Iranian engagement on nuclear weapons.

The President yesterday denounced the “extent of the fraud” and the “shocking” and “brutal” response of the Iranian regime to public demonstrations in Tehran these past four days.

“These elections are an atrocity,” he said. “If [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad had made such progress since the last elections, if he won two-thirds of the vote, why such violence?” The statement named the regime as the cause of the outrage in Iran and, without meddling or picking favorites, stood up for Iranian democracy.

The President who spoke those words was France’s Nicolas Sarkozy.

The French are hardly known for their idealistic foreign policy and moral fortitude. Then again many global roles are reversing in the era of Obama.

– Wall Street Journal.

Good questions and points by Bill Kristol:

“Smart power” is a modification of “soft power,” which the Obama-ites are also huge fans of. Well, isn’t this the time to try some soft power?

For example: Statements of support for fair elections and peaceful protest; personal outreach to endangered opposition leaders (if not by us, then by Europeans–though how dramatic would it be if Sec. Clinton placed a phone call to Mousavi to make sure he’s not under arrest and is free to talk?); an immediate infusion of funds to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Radio Farda service, which provides invaluable information from and within Iran; technical assistance against the regime’s attempts to block websites, shut down cell phone networks, etc.; suspension (by the Europeans) of various cultural and commercial contacts; pressure through international organizations on behalf of the Iranian peopleIf the administration remains passive (or even if it doesn’t), there’s certainly a case for a congressional resolution ASAP supporting the people of Iran in their struggle for democracy, calling on the Iranian regime to allow international monitors to review the election results, calling on the Iranian government to allow peaceful demonstrations, to stop jamming radios and blocking the internet, etc.; and for congressional action (an amendment to the next bill to be brought up in the Senate) and/or hearings on increased funding for Radio Farda and the like.

Soft power ain’t hard power, but it can make a difference. Shouldn’t the Obama administration at least try to exercise some? Or don’t they believe in soft power? Are they just soft?

“The four candidates whose names made it on the presidential ballot this year were pre-screened by an unelected Guardian Council composed mostly of Islamic clerics, which also disqualified more than 400 others,” reminds the Wall Street Journal. So, yeah, the Iranian “election” was a predetermined sham long before the final votes were (or rather were not) tallied. That same Guardian Council, headed by the Ayatollah, determines every aspect of society, from its religious and social laws, to its lack of freedoms and liberty, to its economy and terrorism activities.

Even so, the West looks especially weak. It’s not just the reaction — again or lack thereof — by the Obama camp, but the entire Western world’s lack of condemnation of Iran’s brazen tyranny, that risks alienating and subverting all those Iranian citizens begging for support. There are literally hundreds of diplomatic postures that the West, and especially the United States, could take to vocally condemn Iran’s fraud and stomping of liberty. So far, silence, or at best, bland statements “of concern.”

Having shown such courage, the demonstrators deserve Western support, not least from the media that have recently trumpeted the Mousavi candidacy as evidence of Iran’s openness and potential for reform, conciliation and so on. Whatever happens in the days ahead, the world has now seen the tyranny raw. The least we owe the protestors is not to look away.

That moral obligation goes especially for the Obama Administration. President Obama came to office promising the world’s dictators an open hand in exchange for an unclenched fist. But as with Kim Jong Il’s nuclear advances and the sham trial of two Americans in North Korea, Mr. Khamenei has repudiated the President’s diplomacy of friendly overture. It turns out that the “axis of evil” really is evil — and not, as liberal sages would have it, merely misunderstood.

The vote should prompt Mr. Obama to rethink his pursuit of a grand nuclear bargain with Iran, though early indications suggest he plans to try anyway. On Saturday, the New York Times quoted one unnamed senior Administration official to the effect that the election uproar would cause Mr. Ahmadinejad to be more receptive to Mr. Obama’s overtures as a sop to disgruntled public opinion. If the Administration really believes this, then Mr. Obama is the second coming of Jimmy Carter and the mullahs will play him for time to get their bomb.

However, Mr. Obama has also stressed the importance of democracy, rule of law and transparency, most recently in the June 4 Cairo speech in which he addressed himself directly to the world’s Muslims, Iranian-Muslims included. Now the stand-off in Tehran will test — more quickly than Mr. Obama probably imagined — whether he was serious when he said “we will welcome all elected, peaceful governments — provided they govern with respect for all their people.”

Here’s Victor Davis Hanson:

Whatever a well-meaning President Obama thinks, occasional American outbursts against Muslims are not analogous with the terrorism directed at Westerners or the hostility toward Christianity shown in most of the Muslim world. Try flying into Saudi Arabia with a Bible, as compared to traveling to San Francisco with a Koran. One can easily forsake Christianity; one can never safely leave Islam. European worries about headscarves are not the equivalent of the Gulf states’ harassment of practicing Christians. Sorry, they’re just not.

… Conflating Western misdemeanors with Middle Eastern felonies is classical conflict-resolution theory, and laudably magnanimous. But privately the world knows that Muslims are treated better in the West than Christians are in Muslim countries. That Muslims migrate to the lands of Westerners, and not vice versa. That disputes over a border between Palestinians and Israelis do not explain the unhappiness of the Arab masses, suffering from state-caused poverty and wretchedness. That American military assistance to Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo, Kuwait, and Somalia, direct aid to Egypt, Jordan, and the Palestinians, and moral condemnation of Chinese, Russian, and Balkan treatment of Muslims, coupled with a generous U.S. immigration policy, are not really cause for apology or atonement.

In short, few Arab leaders wish to give a “speech to the West.” They would have to take responsibility, directly or indirectly, for either fostering or appeasing radical Islam, while denying their culpability for its decades of mass murdering. They would also have to lament the global economic havoc caused in part by oil cartels and energy price-fixing.

President Obama’s intent is noble, but therapeutic efforts to disguise the truth never really work.