If you elevate "engagement" above all, then you must give up support of democracy and values.

Michael Ledeen: Obama Must 'Bring Down Iranian Regime' By: Jim Meyers Foreign policy expert and author Michael Ledeen tells Newsmax that President Barack Obama "hasn't done anything" to help the Iranian people as resistance to the country's repressive regime continues. Ledeen also says that the talks Obama seeks with the current regime will go nowhere, charges that Iranians "have been killing Americans all over the world," and warns that as soon as the Islamic Republic acquires a nuclear weapon, it will "test" it on Israel. But he also believes the current regime is unlikely to survive. Israel will certainly attack Iran if the West fails to stop the ayatollahs from completing a nuclear weapon, Ledeen said.****It's not clear how, especially since Obama will both try to thwart any such attack and will excoriate Israel after the fact.****"They've said as soon as they get a nuclear weapon they're going to test it on Israel, so that's a pretty big threat," Ledeen said, adding, "I expect the Israelis to eventually attack the Iranian nuclear facilities if the rest of the world doesn't find some other way to do it. Whether they will bomb it or not, I can't tell. There are a lot of ways to do it."Ledeen holds the Freedom Scholar chair at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He is a former consultant to the U.S. National Security Council and the Departments of State and Defense, and is a contributing editor to National Review.
Iranian authorities say 17 protesters and eight members of the volunteer Basij militia have been killed in two weeks of unrest, and that hundreds of people have been arrested. ut Iranian authorities have barred journalists for international news organizations from reporting on the streets and ordered them to stay in their offices. Ledeen claims that in fact, the death toll in Iran runs in the hundreds, and thousands of people have been arrested....asked Ledeen where he sees the conflict headed."Nobody knows," said Ledeen, whose books include "The Iranian Time Bomb" and "The War Against the Terror Masters." "They've killed hundreds by now, and thousands of people are in prison. It does seem like the people are so furious, so angry, both with the electoral fraud and now with the repression, that it's hard to imagine this going away any time in the near future."Whether there will be big demonstrations, whether there will be small-scale demonstrations or protests or strikes or general strikes, nobody really can tell."Martella asked if Iran will continue to operate as a police state or will change come to the oil-rich nation.
"Historically you have to say that it is possible to keep on operating a repressive police state if you're willing to kill everybody that gets in your way," Ledeen responded."In Iran the numbers are violently against the regime, because out of 65 or 70 million Iranians there are probably 50 or 55 [million] that don't like the regime. And they've shown in the last couple of week that they're actually going to take the chance and put their lives on the line."Under those circumstances it's unlikely that the regime will survive. It's really a contest of will at this point." ****The U.S. abandoned the Hungarians in 1956, the Czechs in the Czech Spring, the Kurds vs Saddam, etc so it takes a long time for rebels to survive brutal suppression when there is no outside force willing to help, morally and perhaps materially ( the Afghans vs the Soviets are an example counter to the foregoing.). Iran is a hodge-podge of ethnic groups with only about half the population being Farsi-speaking.
As for the talks Obama says are still possible with Iran over its nuclear ambitions, Ledeen declared: "We're never going to get a deal with Iran. Every president from Jimmy Carter through George W. Bush and now to Obama has tried to strike some kind of bargain with Iran, and they've all failed. "So I don't see why anybody would imagine that they could succeed now."****Obama is compulsive about talking and is used to doing so without substance. He also cares not about giving credibility to the worst kind of people, however disheartening it must be to the better kind in their own countries.****
Iran has rebuffed widespread claims of fraud in the presidential election and officially declared that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected, beating Mir Hossein Mousavi. Martella asked if that makes a difference, considering that "Iran is a brutal theocracy ruled by mullahs."Ledeen answered: "Yes, because Mousavi has made it clear that he wants to dismantle that brutal theocracy."****Mousavi might have started out not much better than Ahmadinejad but circumstances gave him a role in history that he might be willing to undertake. ****And that regime is a "huge threat" to the U.S., Ledeen told ..."Iran's been at war with the United States for 30 years, and Iranians have been killing Americans all over the world all that time," he said. "They are killing Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere as we speak."So it's a big threat. It's declared itself a threat. It has said it wants to destroy us." Martella asked: "If you were giving Obama advice about Iran, what would you tell him?"Said Ledeen: "Support the Iranian people. Say publicly that all these people have not died in vain and that Iran must be free, and then support them. Bring down the Iranian regime."Martella: "Do you think he's not done enough so far?"Ledeen: "He hasn't done anything to help the Iranian people. He's been dragged kicking and screaming to the point where he's finally condemned the repression, but that's it."