In a New York Times article today (as well as many other places reporting on this story) we see what will surely come of U.S. officials taking a hard line on this issue:
"The [Iranian] Foreign Ministry, meantime, summoned the Swiss ambassador, who represents American interests in Tehran, in protest of what it called “meddling” by the United States into its affairs because of statements by American officials on Iran’s elections."
There's no sense in making it seem like we are attempting to plant a pro-Western politician, as we have been known to do so often. Let the Iranian people take up the fight. When will those of John McCain's ilk realize that tough talk isn't always the best way to go about things? As John Kerry put it in a recent Times op-ed:
"If we actually want to empower the Iranian people, we have to understand how our words can be manipulated and used against us to strengthen the clerical establishment, distract Iranians from a failing economy and rally a fiercely independent populace against outside interference. Iran’s hard-liners are already working hard to pin the election dispute, and the protests, as the result of American meddling. On Wednesday, the Iranian Foreign Ministry chastised American officials for “interventionist” statements. Government complaints of slanted coverage by the foreign press are rising in pitch...
[I]f the street protests of the last days have taught us anything, it is that this is an Iranian moment, not an American one...
What comes next in Iran is unclear. What is clear is that the tough talk that Senator McCain advocates got us nowhere for the last eight years. Our saber-rattling only empowered hard-liners and put reformers on the defensive. An Iranian president who advocated a “dialogue among civilizations” and societal reforms was replaced by one who denied the Holocaust and routinely called for the destruction of Israel."
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