The Virtue of International Disinterest

Tens of thousands filled Tehran’s streets today in celebration of the 31st anniversary of Iranian independence.  Bloomberg reports that “security forces clashed with opposition leaders and protesters who used the occasion to defy the government.”  That’s a nice way of saying that forward-thinking Iranians were oppressed, and possibly murdered–“[s]ecurity forces fired guns and used tear gas in a square in west Tehran where demonstrators were gathered,”–at the hands of Uncle Ahma’s thugs.  For many, the growing insurrection among the Iranian people provides support and justification for a U.S. invasion of the nearly nuclear regime.  But, of course, such a suggestion is met on both sides of the political spectrum by cries of imprudence.  After all, historical precedent–from The Monroe Doctrine to The U.N. Charter–requires that we americans remain neutral in all foreign affairs that do not have a direct impact on our own national interest.  In other words, it is immoral for us to aid an oppressed people in revolting from their xenophobic butcher-tyrant.  Forget the fact that millions of our brothers and sisters across the globe suffer daily under the heel of political oppression.  We have our own concerns to worry about.  Like Healthcare.  Or Public Education.  Or Social Security.  Sound selfish?  That’s because it is.  It’s also probably not the kind of attitude that either Monroe or Roosevelt had in mind.