jaketapper: WH says it needs to focus on Iran’s nuke program/support for terror, must deal w Iran we have not 1 we wish we had. response?

jaketapper: to translate from twitterese: WH says “We have to deal with the Iran we HAVE, not the one we WISH we had”…

SenJohnMcCain: that’s revisiting the cold war arguments on how we dealt with the Soviet Union

SenJohnMcCain: we must stand strong for democracy in Iran as we stood for Democracy in Poland, Germany, and Czechoslovakia

jaketapper: So if President Obama called u and asked your advice what would u tell him?

SenJohnMcCain: speak up for these young Iranians who deserve a free and fair election.

SenJohnMcCain: again, same old argument by the left during the Cold War – we’ve seen this movie before.

jaketapper: so bottom line, u think a stronger rhetorical show of support from PresObama — would that include a call for new election?

SenJohnMcCain: Absolutely!! Funny, how history repeats itself…

If this is indeed a repeat of the Prague Spring, McCain expects Iran to be free sometime circa 2031.

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We stand with the people of Iran in their struggle to participate in a democratic election and who deserve the right to freely assemble and voice their opposition to its questionable outcome.

The Administration’s silence in the face of Iran’s brutal suppression of democratic rights represents a step backwards for homegrown democracy in the Middle East.  President Obama must take a strong public position in the face of violence and human rights abuses.  We have a moral responsibility to lead the world in opposition to Iran’s extreme response to peaceful protests.

In addition, Iran’s clerical regime has made clear that its nuclear program will move forward.  The United States cannot trust the aspirations of a nation that is a state-sponsor of terrorism, and the Administration must work with Congress to do everything in its power to deny Iran nuclear weapons.

There’s been a drumbeat on this all day, getting louder.

A friend called who with a shaking voice asked me for an explanation on what is happening in Iran, in our country.

I said, the Supreme Leader has decided to replace the Islamic Republic with an Islamic government and that we all have to participate in this “great celebration” and be “deeply happy…”

These young people who are being beaten in the streets of Tehran and other provinces, whose faces look stunned, Mr. Mousavi and fighting clergies who issue statements, think it is possible to protect the Republic and the people’s votes.  It is very clear to me that 22 Khordad 1388, four months after the revolution turned 30, the time of Republic has come to an end in our country.  Ahmadinejad, with confirmation of the Supreme Leader, has obtained the necessary votes and won.  Congratulations on this victory…Although no celebration happens without victims and the bigger the celebration, the larger the number of casualties…

22 Bahman was the beginning of the Islamic Revolution and 22 Khordad is the beginning of the Islamic Government.

My friend started crying louder; bitterly crying.

Notice what’s happening here. The opposition to Ahmadinejad is portraying him and his supporters as a corrupting figure, eating the Islamic Revolution at its core. They’re portraying themselves as somewhere on the spectrum of reformists and restorationists. I wish I remembered my Crane Brinton better for a more precise taxonomy. But this is what Iranian human rights activists in the United States mean when they point out that a crucial weapon in the protesters’ arsenal is their claim of authenticity.  If they’re supplying a reformist definition for the mantle of the true Islamic Revolution, with a demagogue like Ahmadinejad as a usurper, that won’t solve all of the U.S.’s problems with Iran by a long shot. But it does open up the prospect of real, substantive dialogue if they win.

I have no real information here, so take everything that follows with an ocean of salt. But I wonder if the fear of losing control of the Islamic Revolution itself is what drove Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to reverse his initial endorsement of Ahmadinejad’s election and order an inquiry into voter fraud.

[T]he challenger told me in calm and deliberate tones, the West need not hold its breath on the nuclear issue.

There will be no freeze and no halt to enrichment whatever inducements the US puts on the table. Enrichment to weapons grade uranium is on the table, he says.

But at the same time he confirms that his position on nuclear arms conforms with that of the supreme leader’s - that weapons of mass destruction are “haram” (forbidden).

“Building nuclear weapons is out of the question,” Mousavi tells me.

But no quarter will be given in the question of relations with Israel, nor will support be cut for Iran’s allies in the region. Backing of Palestinian Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah is a mater of morality and self interest, he says, but this should not be interpreted as a signal of aggressive intent or a desire or confrontation.

This would appear to represent the Iranian ruling class’s consensus: nuclear energy is a right that won’t be abridged; Israel is an abomination; Iran ought to play a leading role in regional affairs. It’s important to remember that the Iranian presidency has minimal latitude to set foreign policy, so Moussavi ought to be read as a barometer of a certain perspective among a certain cohort, rather than a blueprint for potential Iranian international maneuver. That’s not to say his remarks aren’t significant: they place Ahmadinejad as outside that consensus. Here’s how Moussavi describes his own foreign policy, for instance: “Right now we believe that a powerful Iran can play a bigger international role by interacting with the rest of the world and building trust with them. This is what we are after.” Moussavi and Ahmadinejad share certain bedrock positions — as do, say, Dick Cheney and President Obama — since, after all, they’re both Iranians. It’s only sensible for Moussavi to frame his positions in a way that promises to maximize Iranian power. What’s more significant is he defines Iranian power as a positive-sum game for the rest of the world and consigns Ahmadinejad’s bellicosity to a negative-sum one.