Memo Suggests Obama Ignored Plea from Iranian Opposition During 2009 Uprising

During the 2009 Iranian uprising, the US State Department worked to stay out of the fray. It even stated that the Iranian opposition did not want American help to resist the mullahs:

“Most leaders in the Green movement made clear they did not desire financial or other support from the United States,” a State Department senior official said. “As an organic movement, it was concerned that taking outside support would discredit it in the eyes of the Iranian people. We respect that and do not provide financial assistance to any political movement, party or faction in Iran.”

But a secret memo unearthed by the DC Examiner tells a very different story:

In November 2009, leaders of the Green party, which had staged a revolt on the streets of Tehran in June of that year, sent a long memo through channels to the Obama administration that some analysts said was a clear call for help.

“So now, at this pivotal point in time, it is up to the countries of the free world to make up their mind,” states the opposition memo dated Nov. 30, 2009. “Will they continue on the track of wishful thinking and push every decision to the future until it is too late, or will they reward the brave people of Iran and simultaneously advance the Western interests and world peace.”

The eight-page memo describes the current regime under Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as a “brutal, apocalyptic theocratic dictatorship.”

The memo warns that Iran “with its apocalyptic constitution will never give up the atomic bomb, nor will it give up its terror network, because it needs these instruments to maintain its power and enhance its own economic and financial wealth.”

In other words, the Iranian regime is not composed of rational actors.

The Obama response pattern to crises in foreign countries is curious, to say the least. The administration saw fit to intervene in Honduras when its president was removed from office in accord with that country’s constitution. It intervened in Libya despite not knowing very much about the opposition battling Gaddafi. It intervened in Egypt, costing the United States and Israel an ally and jeopardizing the longstanding peace between Israel and Egypt. But so far, Obama hasn’t seen fit to do anything meaningful about Syria, and he evidently ignored a plea for help from the main Iranian opposition group. His administration told public lies to justify its lack of will to help the Iranian opposition.

More: Michael Ledeen has much more on the memo, and the memo itself, on the PJ front page.

Update: Sara Carter, who unearthed the memo for the DC Examiner, joined Janine Turner on her show (www.janineturner.com) today that will be rebroadcasted on Ustream at 5pm.