Ahmadinejad Won the Battle but Lost the War

While all news from Iran is shrouded in the haze of repression, the mass protests in Tehran appear to be giving way to sullen resentment over a stolen election. So in the end, it probably did not much matter whether Barack Obama cautiously expressed "deep concerns" about the election (June 16) or vigorously called the violence against the protesters "outrageous" (June 26).

In truth, the American people did not need the White House to tell them what to think about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Ayatollah Ali Khamanei and the rest of Iran's thuggish theocracy. The unpopular images of Iran's rulers have been fixed since the 1979 hostage crisis and the ritual denunciations of the United States as the "Great Satan." Gallup polls over the last 20 years have consistently found that three-quarters or more of American voters have an "unfavorable" opinion of Iran. Long before he perfected ballot-box stuffing, Ahmadinejad had mastered the art of international villainy with his Holocaust-denying, wipe-Israel-from-the-map theatrics.

Even if they failed in their quixotic quest to loosen the reins of the reigning rulers, the Iranian protests were, at least, a success in America. For the first time in three decades, average Americans began to understand the contradictions in Iran between the leaders and the led. Suddenly there was an awareness that not all Iranians look like 16th century religious figures with long white beards.

According to the Project for Excellence in Journalism, the demonstrations in Tehran received more American media coverage than any other international story (aside from the Iraq War) in the past two and a half years. The whole world was indeed watching – and attitudes about Iran will never be the same.

Not too long ago, one-third of American voters said flatly that they would support military action against Iran (CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll, early June 2007). And if Iran were close to developing a nuclear weapon, 41 percent of the American electorate would back military strikes (NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll, mid-July 2008). While John McCain was joking in 2007 when he channeled the Beach Boys singing "Barbara Ann" and transformed it into "Bomb Iran," a hawkish segment of the American electorate presumably was not.

Obviously the Obama administration is far less bellicose than the Bush-Cheney team, which reveled in the shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later doctrine of preventive war. But even with a Democrat in the White House, it would have been possible to envision a military confrontation with Iran over its nuclear program, incursions into Iraq or Israel or some other igniting event. At least, armed hostilities would have been theoretically conceivable before Americans saw the hopeful faces of the Iranian protesters in news footage and YouTube clips.

Looking back at the history of the past six decades, Americans are only comfortable waging a protracted war against a faceless enemy and an alien ideology. Communist North Korea, Communist North Vietnam, Taliban-dominated Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein's Iraq: All these were unfathomable people and regimes. Hermetic North Korea – a nuclear-armed nation whose leaders seem dangerously bizarre and whose people are only glimpsed in mass rallies – embodies the notion of the alien other. While George W. Bush tried to differentiate between Saddam and his oppressed people, ordinary Iraqis remained mostly an abstraction until long after the first bombs fell on Baghdad.

But never again will that be the case with the Iranian people. No one would possibly countenance bombing Tehran and Iranian civilians to avenge the tragic death of Neda Agha-Soltan. In fact, any attack on Iran would undoubtedly inspire worry about the fate of Neda's singing teacher and the bloggers and tweeters who became the voice of the Iranian resistance. As loathsome as Ahmadinejad may be, as dangerous as the Iranian nuclear program could become, this is no longer a nation that can be simply cubby-holed as a charter member of the Axis of Evil.

Yes, it is ironic that Ahmadinejad and Company have inadvertently humanized the Iranian people by stealing an election and then brutally suppressing anti-government dissent. In the short run, the theocrats and the Iranian hardliners may derive short-term benefits as the American military option becomes even more unsustainable and implausible. But there will come a time -- hopefully sooner than later -- when June 2009 will be commemorated as the moment when the old order began to crumble as millions of Iranians bravely embraced the 21st century.