An article attempting to decipher the true meaning of Iran's massive post-election protests.

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America could be witnessing a seminal moment in international relations.  Since President Obama's June 4 speech in Cairo, the Middle East has seen sweeping political change in Lebanon, where a pro-western faction defeated the heavily-favored representatives of Hezbollah, and in Iran, where the world is now bearing witness to the state's largest political uprising since the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

Obama's Cairo speech, like his Philadelphia speech on race, portrayed an America that is not simply tolerant of difference, but embraces it.  His speech was both lofty in its idealistic rhetoric and firmly grounded in realism.  Obama, like no America leader I have seen in my (short) lifetime, possesses an uncanny ability to speak to disparate groups of individuals and the world community as a whole simultaneously.  In Cairo, President Obama was able to speak to the concerns of Palestinians and Israelis, Christian and Muslim-Americans, Iraqi and Afghani citizens, and American service members alike.  More important, the Cairo speech illustrated that the United States seeks a "broader engagement" with the Middle Eastern community.

Among other things, President Obama's Cairo speech emphasized common principles between disparate peoples.  He emphasized the need to listen and the need to seek common ground when attacking problems.  President Obama sought to speak the truth and, indeed, he did just that.  He preached tolerance and understanding.  He stressed his duty, as America's leader, to refute negative stereotypes imposed on the Muslim community in the aftermath of September 11 and contemporaneously underscored that Americans, like Muslims, do not fit crude stereotypes.  President Obama accentuated that "America is not a self-interested empire" (at least most of the time). The president poignantly noted that, "[w]ords alone cannot meet the needs of our people."  Words must be combined with bold action.  However, expression can change perception, inciting change which, in turn, can lead to bolder, more positive action.

In Cairo, President Obama approached America's relationship with the Middle East with an unexpected level of intellectual honesty that is seen in few statesmen these days.  He treated us as adults and did not oversimplify the problems we face or the concerns we have.  Obama emphatically denied the justness of terrorism in all of its forms.  He highlighted that while the fear and anger that the events of 9/11 elicited from Americans was understandable, the use of torture in response to those harrowing events was not.  Facing an even more shocking bout of intellectual honesty, the American president acknowledged that the Palestinian people have suffered for sixty years and lived in a situation that he described as "intolerable."  He recognized that Israelis and Palestinians both have legitimate claims to their own political, social, and cultural self-determination.  Meeting his critics head on: President Obama spoke of Palestine as though it were a legitimate political entity, stating that:

the United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. . . . It is time for these settlements to stop. . . . Just as it devastates Palestinian families, the continuing humanitarian crisis in Gaza does not serve Israel's security; neither does the continuing lack of opportunity in the West Bank.  Progress in the daily lives of the Palestinian people must be a critical part of a road to peace, and Israel must take concrete steps to enable such progress. . . .

America will align our policies with those who pursue peace, and we will say in public what we say in private to Israelis and Palestinians and Arabs.  We cannot impose peace.  But privately, many Muslims recognize that Israel will not go away.  Likewise, many Israelis recognize the need for a Palestinian state.

It is time for us to act on what everyone knows to be true.  Too many tears have been shed.  Too much blood has been shed.  All of us have a responsibility to work for the day when the mothers of Israelis and Palestinians can see their children grow up without fear; when the Holy Land of the three great faiths is the place of peace that God intended it to be; when Jerusalem is a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims, and a place for all of the children of Abraham to mingle peacefully together as in the story of Isra -- as in the story of Isra, when Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed, peace be upon them, joined in prayer.

On top of that, President Obama is, to my knowledge, the first American president to publicly admit, before a Middle Eastern audience, to the U.S.'s role in overthrowing the democratically-elected government of Mohammed Mosaddeq in 1953.  The speech gave me chills (though the feeling passed quickly--I do try to avoid falling prey to my emotions).

Now some contend that the protests in Iran are a direct result of Obama's "extending an open hand" to the Middle East, but I am not so sure; I firmly believe that President Obama's conduct did not create this desire for change felt by young Iranians (though the president's actions probably have intensified that desire).  The true meaning of Iran's post-election protests is unclear, and will remain so, to American audiences.  Indeed, it is far easier to state what the protest does not mean.  Protest does not mean that the Iranian Government will moderate its antagonism of the West.  Protest does not mean that Iran will become a democracy in the foreseeable future.  And protest does not mean that the Iranian State will cease to be a destabilizing force in the Middle East for as long as the current regime controls the country.  The highest turnout for an election in Iran's history (turnout numbers that put Americans to shame mind you) does not mean that Iran will stop pursuing nuclear weapons or that the State will discontinue its support of terrorism.

President Obama, in speaking of Iran's historic turnout, noted that Iran's election meant that change could be possible.  Yet it is clear to me that this election does more than indicate the possibility of change; it demonstrates that change is already a reality in the Middle East.  It marks a step forward for the Iranian people, if not one for their government.

In the outrage over the rigging of the Iranian election and the consequential (s)election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the same vigor is observed in Iran's youth that was palpable in our youth throughout the 2008 presidential elections.  This youth movement in Iran, more than anything else, is dispelling the notion that Iranians collectively harbor ill-will toward Americans and counters the thought that Middle Eastern Muslims in general, and Iranians specifically, find Western liberalism repugnant.

Despite the Revolutionary Guard's and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's best efforts to intimidate dissenters through force and acts of violence, the protesters have persistently voiced their disapproval, through peaceful means, of the State's proclamation that Ahmadinejad resoundingly won reelection, notwithstanding strong evidence that likely demonstrates that he did not.

Opposition candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi continues to call for protest across the Iranian countryside and his supporters have responded accordingly.  Mousavi's supporters seem resolute in the desire to have their votes mean something; that is, for their votes to count.

The Iranian people--unlike the oppressive, intolerant regime that ostensibly represents their interests--seek freedom, freedom to forge their own political, social, and national path.  To that end, Iranians do not seek a Western-style democracy, or a Middle Eastern democracy, but an Iranian democracy that speaks candidly as a true national representative of the Iranian people.

The psychological effect that the widespread protest in Iran will have on America's national and political consciousness could be monumental, for these events occurring across the globe could be marking the death knell of the conservative understanding that the Iranian population espouses a virulent "Death to America" ideology.  The Iranians are responding to President Obama's call for improved American-Iranian relations.  President Obama is showing that his administration seeks to be engaged with the world in a way that his Republican predecessor, President George W. Bush, was not.  And the world appears to be responding to such engagement positively.

President Obama, for all of his faults (of which he has many), is not a man whose actions are mirror images of the arrogant military power he can be said to represent.  To the contrary, President Obama has often approached his role as leader of the free world with unparalleled levels of humility.

Amazingly, national political processes can be quite effective in changing how the international community views a government and its people.  This is as true of Iran as it is of America.  Prior to November 2008, Americans vicariously projected a certain air of arrogance to the world through their Republican president.  With the election of President Obama, Americans and their government do not look so haughtily self-assured; instead, we look confident but humble and we appear to possess enough courage to be able to fess up to the mistakes of the past.  Likewise, prior to Iran's national election, the people of Iran were (unfairly) perceived as a threat to America's security because of the aggressive, dangerous actions of their government.  Post-election, the Iranian Government is as dangerous as ever, but Iranians will, I believe, be viewed quite differently.

It is the perception of change that catapulted President Obama to this nation's highest office.  Often governmental and individual actions are driven by perception.  Thus, the Iranian people are largely responding to the perception that America is more empathetic than in years past (even though such a perception may not be reflecting reality).  Nonetheless, perceptions only carry individuals so far.  The world responds to President Obama differently than it did President Bush because this president is largely seen as fundamentally "different" from the previous one.  All of this is to say, simply, that in international relations, as in Hollywood, image matters.

The Iranian protests do not signal impending regime change, that's for sure, but they probably do denote a reaction to American policies that serves to change tightly-held perceptions of the Iranian people.  Through protest, Iran's people shows that they as a people do not resent America's freedoms, but instead seek to emulate them in their own unique way.

Whereas the outcry over the unfairness of the Iranian national election will almost certainly not lead to any real changes in Iranian-American relations, they do demonstrate a desire for change and a change in perception.  Changes in perception are often attended by changes in reality.

Admittedly, Iranian democracy is still, seemingly, a pipe dream.  Of the two extremes that could arise out of this protest: democratic reform on the one hand and Tiananmen Square-like government slaughter on the other, the latter seems more likely.  But this movement gives the impression of a somewhat refreshing spontaneity.  If one expects these protests to act as a catalyzing force for change in U.S. relations with the current Iranian government, then the protests do not matter because that won't happen; Iran's government views the West with hostility today and will surely maintain that hostile viewpoint for the conceivable future.  Still, as long as this protest continues, potential for democratic reform in Iran exists.  And that is not just change that Iranians and Americans can believe in, but it is change that the entire world can and should endorse.

The protests are proving that the young people of Iran are, by and large, not accurately represented by their government.  Currently, no figure in international politics is more capable of influencing the future of this planet through the power of his rhetoric than Barack Obama.  The Middle East's response to his Cairo speech is evidence of that.  However, these protests in Iran say more about Iran's government and its people than it ever will say about the power of the bully pulpit (which may be this nation's highest office's strongest selling point).  These protests are of symbolic importance to Americans; to those Iranians who risk their lives to engage in them, the protests are far more than symbolic gestures.  They speak to life itself.  It is for that reason that I hope that they not only continue, but gain in strength.  So whereas the Ayatollah Khamenei hypocritically calls for calm and patience, and peace and tranquility, even as his Revolutionary Guard kills their own, boisterous Iranians are proclaiming: "GO TO HELL DICTATOR."  Gideon Levy, writing in Haaretz, describes the events unfolding in Iran as making him "green with envy."  He relates:

The scenes from Iran prove that some nations are trying to take their fate into their own hands.  Some nations are not floating on the surface in sickly indifference, some are not looking around in endless complacence.  And some are not following their leaders with the blindness of a herd.  There are moments in the histories of certain nations when the people say enough.  No more.

The Iranians may have reached their breaking point.  At this time America does not have to espouse the view that Iran's Government is corrupt and dangerous.  Millions of Iranians are aware of that fact themselves and they finally are saying, just as Americans did on November 4, "ENOUGH!!"

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