How Obama Could Aid the Iranian People

That was a topic discussed on Fox News Sunday today:

WALLACE: I do want to go back to Iran, though, before we get to U.S. diplomacy, because I think it's so instructive and so sad -- not surprising, but sad. Cell phone service cut off inside Iran. A lot of Web sites cut off. I mean, this is a totalitarian regime exercising its control.

KRISTOL: I'm not so sure they're going to -- it's going to work. I mean, these are the biggest street demonstrations in Tehran in 10 years. People are being a little too fatalistic and deterministic in saying, "Oh, ultimately the reformists always lose."

Ten years ago, the regime was in real trouble with the student demonstrations in Iran. We did nothing to support them or help them. The Europeans did nothing. They had a pseudo-reformist in power, Khatami, which sort of deflected the anger.

Here we have the opposite, and as opposed to -- I think Mousavi -- it looks like he's calling for a general strike and mass demonstrations on Tuesday. That will be the moment when we see who can really turn people on the streets. Are the Tehran police willing to fire on their fellow Iranian citizens and the like?

If this gets sustained, I think it's a big deal. We now have unambiguously a jihadist security service regime. It's not -- and the theocrats, as Brit called them, are somewhat split, actually. You know, some of them might have preferred Mousavi, a kinder face. They all want the nuclear program.

But now I think it's unambiguously -- you know, it's sort of like the move from a -- you know, a moderate, complicated -- not moderate, but a complicated, illiberal and nuclear-pursuing regime to an unambiguously illiberal regime in which the war party is dominant. That's the key.

I mean, does anyone seriously think that the Ahmadinejad Revolutionary Guard forces wouldn't do anything they could do once they had nuclear weapons? Does anyone think that we can sort of contain them and trust them? So it has huge implications, I think, for our policy and for Israel's policy over the next several months.

WILLIAMS: Well, I think you -- as you can hear from Bill, I think what's happened now is that the hardliners in the United States, in Israel, in the -- throughout the Middle East are sort of emboldened by the result.

They're saying, "You know what? President Obama, you were wrong to ever reach out to the Iranians." Clearly, this is a totalitarian hardline state. I am actually...

WALLACE: When he said hardliners -- I thought you were talking about Ahmadinejad.

WILLIAMS: Yes.

WALLACE: You're talking about Bill Kristol.

WILLIAMS: Well, no, I'm talking about the Iranians. But I think that, you know, when you look at what the possibility is here now, it seems to me options then become limited, because how can you negotiate with someone -- how can you offer them any incentives when, in fact, there's a question of their legitimacy?

Is this a real government or not? Is it simply some kind of, you know, religious-driven society, totalitarian -- however you want to describe it -- in which they are not...

WALLACE: So you think all of President Obama's efforts or hopes to reach out to Iran on some level -- that that's dead?

WILLIAMS: Well, it looks like it. I mean, the only thing is that there's the possibility that you get Ayatollah Khamenei and others in search of some kind of domestic appeasement, saying to people, "You know what? Oh, no, we're going to negotiate with the international community. We're going to take steps to try to amp down the tensions here." But that's the only hope.

I don't see that there's much hope now in terms of these negotiations going forward because President Obama would look weaker. It would look as if he was giving in to this man who's not even legitimately elected.

KRISTOL: Juan's giving up on reaching out by President Obama. At the moment you should be -- this is the moment for President Obama to step up. He does have some credibility, presumably, with people in Iran. He should support the democrats.

HUME: Right.

KRISTOL: He should support the demonstrators. He should say that stealing elections is unacceptable, killing demonstrators in the streets of Tehran is unacceptable. He could work with the Europeans to say, "Let's bring in international observers to review whether this was a fair election. If it wasn't, let's think about having another election."

WALLACE: But you're saying turn up the heat, not reach out to the ruling regime.