1. Media is now trying to frame the Iran uprising as purely a protest about corruption, but people are shouting they don't want to live in an Islamic Republic any more and telling the mullahs to leave the country.
2. Corruption is an easy framework because it's regime-friendly: Rouhani promises to clean up gov't, everybody goes home, nothing changes. Standard political narrative that works anywhere in the world right now.
3. Corruption framing also helps protect Obama. Media can sell a story that he meant well with nuke deal but greedy Iranian officials dropped the ball.
4. What's actually happening in Iran is devasting to Obama because it refutes the core premise of the nuke deal: that Iran is now a responsible gov't ready to take its place in the world community.
5. Also devastating because the Iranian people are specifically complaining that nuke deal windfall was used to finance war and terrorism in Syria, Yemen, Gaza, etc.
6. The whole idea was that nuke deal was supposed to make Iran friendlier to West through commercial ties. Instead, regime became MORE aggressive about spreading malign regional influence.
7. Iran has TWO oppressive regimes: Rouhani and the Ayatollah. Both have military forces at their command. The Iranian people are standing up to BOTH of them at once.
8. Protesters could not be more clear about this - they are denouncing Rouhani, his policies, the Ayatollah, the mullahs, and the very idea of an "Islamic republic." It's not one uprising, it's two at once.
9. Obama's brain trust said the nuclear deal was supposed to strengthen the moderates and weaken the hardliners. Remember that?
10. The Iranian people are less willing to accept the "moderates vs. hardliners" dog and pony show than anyone in the Obama administration, or most of the Western foreign policy establishment.
11. And it cannot be understated that much of what the protesters are saying dovetails with the Trump administration's critique of both regimes in Tehran. Absolutely NONE of it agrees with Obama and his policy platform.
12. Which is not to say the protesters are quoting Trump - if they want to start doing that, they can say so loud and clear, any time they wish. But it does mean Trump's vision of Iran is far more clear than Obama's was.
13. Obama's "leading from behind" amounted to propping up a decaying regime that was gearing up for regional war at the same time it was losing the faith of its own people.
14. That's what "leading from behind" IS. Another word for it is "appeasement." Accommodate the bad guys, hope they toss you a few crumbs, give windy speeches about the moral arc of history.
15. Real leadership requires clarity. It might not be as polished and urbane. It doesn't set editorial board hearts aflutter or get standing ovations at the U.N. General Assembly.
16. And real leadership takes the risks necessary to CHANGE history. The Iranian people are taking a risk like that right now. Trump, Pence, Haley and others are standing up for them with no expectation of applause.
17. With confidence in our principles, we trust that we can build a strong and lasting relationship with what Iran can become. The Iranian people will remember what we said, LOUDLY, when they took the risks to change history.
