300 WORDS OR LESS: 06.15.09

Iran on the Brink
Was the election in Iran legitimate? Did Mahmoud Ahmadinejad really win a 63 percent landslide? The question is moot. The result is the same either way and we have been reminded, as Ben Domenech observes, that in Iran "the mullahs determine who wins and who loses, a fact that has nothing to do with the actual votes cast at the ballot box."

The possibility that Iranians protesting against the mullahs' rule will somehow topple Ahmadinejad's regime is, alas, remote. No Western power appears willing to challenge the regime in Iran. The demonstrators being beaten in the streets of Tehran seem to evoke no sympathy from Barack Obama or anyone in his administration. If the White House is relying on the foreign policy expertise of Vice President Joe Biden, certainly no intelligent response is to be expected.

Obama apparently meant what he said in promising there would be "no preconditions" for negotiating with Ahmadinejad. Is the Iranian president's re-election legitimate? Is dissent being brutally crushed in Tehran? Never mind. "No preconditions."

Given unlimited latitude to do as he wishes, what will Ahmadinejad do? We do not know. What we do know is that he has no fear of Iranian opponents, nor any expectation of meaningful action against him by the United States or its weak European allies.

Ahmadinejad re-elected (legitimately or otherwise) is a greater potential threat to peace in a region where peace is never more than a temporary lull in permanent hostility. Whatever lull now exists is not likely to last long, and Hope recedes, proclaiming its motto, "No preconditions."

-- RSM