A Vain Cry for Breath

This is a most wretched day. New York is in the midst of a monsoon; everybody is depressed. New York State still has no working government. Cookie dough is being recalled for E coli contamination. President Obama seemed to be practicing last night, at the Radio and Television Correspondents Association dinner, for his next career: on Comedy Central.

Oh, yes. A massacre is underway in Tehran.

I would weep if I had any tears left. In the six and a half decades that I have been breathing millions have involuntarily stopped breathing, and I have shed tears for them. It is a wonder my weeping has not turned me into a desiccated corpse. So no more tears from me; I would rather breathe than not breathe.

“The World cries seeing your last breath, you didn't die in vain. We remember you,” one poster is reported to have Twittered.

All dying is in vain. The only thing more persistent than violence among human beings is death. And death could be seen as unusually persistent except there is nothing abnormal about dying. Iran seems poised for a killing season, a monsoon of violence. It is time for retreat. We need to forget our national and international policies and ask all sides to withdraw. America’s interest, everyone’s interest, pales before the finality of oblivion. There will be time enough to talk to Iran’s rulers about keeping civilization’s worst killing devices from spreading. Time for talk ends only when breathing ends.

All the protest over the election results are in vain. For when the killing ends the same rulers will prevail and the same national interests will remain.

Evidently, there are a lot of people in Iran who are at a point of voluntarily giving up respiration for their cause. As always, whenever people prefer not to breath, there are plenty of others who will be glad to hold a pillow over their willing faces.

Are there any good guys in Iran? Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is threatening protestors. Shut up or be killed! Mir Hussein Moussavi is reported to have said he will accept martyrdom. Is he hoping to lead his followers to certain death by example? A suicide bomber attacked a shrine to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Was the bomber a Moussavi martyr or working for the government to blemish the protest movement? The protestors themselves know the government is ready to kill as much as necessary to restore order, but continue anyway. It is always a lovely day to die.

None in Iran are as wretched as our own government. President Obama takes the side of the protestors; he spurs them on by only admonishing the rulers of Iran. “If the Iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it must respect the dignity of its own people and govern through consent, not coercion,” BHO said in a statement released by the White House. Blast dignity to hell. All governments, everywhere, must ask all sides to cease tempting the death instinct. Tell protestors to go home and stay home. Ask Iran’s rulers to send its Basij troops back to the barracks. It is time to assure Iran’s ruling class America will recognize its authority after the crisis ends and that we will no longer interfere with Iran’s internal affairs.

America asking a country to respect the dignity of its own people is like O.J. Simpson engaging in marriage counseling. Our history is littered with the undermining of democratically elected governments. Iran is the prime example of America’s wretched behavior. If you were in charge in Iran would you have anything but contempt for American rulers who have not only overthrown your government, but have done nearly everything short of invasion to undermine your country?

First, America isolates that ancient nation from normal international discourse for the sake of our own domestic political ends, then we, one of the youngest of nations, make demands. All such demands are in vain unless America is ready to stop enough Iranian people from breathing so they acquiesce. That is the vainest of hopes.

Night fell on Iran; inevitable darkness seems to ebb the tide of death. I have this wretched fear that once the sun rises, unless morning brings sobriety to all sides, the protest and killing will continue. For while there has been plenty of killing in the shade, mass death, perversely, happens more efficiently under the sun.

One protestor was quoted in a news report to have said they, the rulers, are out of their minds if they think bloodshed can crush their movement. A wretchedly reckless thing to believe. Governments are known to be willing to shed as much blood as it takes to quench any threat to their rule.

Enough people have stopped breathing for the privilege of fronting for Iran’s rulers.