Opinion: Sean Penn in Iran

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This isn't my opinion. It comes from Iran Scan. I happened by it while surfing for news on Iran and thought that I really couldn't have put my opinion on Sean Penn's visit to Iran any better. More than anything else highlights the better option, that is support real democratic reform in Iran and assisting the people in throwing out the Mullahs.

Here's my favorite part of the article:

"The honest parachuting journalists quickly realize that Friday prayers are a passé backdrop, that Qom is not the story, that Iranians have been in a post-Islamist phase for several years, that most Iranians do not hate America (in fact, as my friend Karim Sadjadpour, the very astute ICG analyst in Tehran puts it, “Iranians are the least anti-American populace in the region”), that the real story is how the Islamic Republic of Iran will contend with a largely young, frustrated, restive, post-revolution population hungry for more political and social freedoms and economic deliverance, and little enamored with the revolutionary slogans of their parents‘ generation.

I wonder how Sean Penn will see things. Will he honestly portray what he sees? Or will he be blinded by his hatred of President George W. Bush to fall into the trap many a good leftist falls into: defending the Islamic Republic to take a jab at Bush. Progressives in America consistently fail to side with the forces for democracy in Iran because it might just seem too, well, Wolfowitzian or, worse, Rumsfeldian."

What bothers me the most about our handling of Iran is that supporting democratic reform and internal regime change should be something that both the Republicans and the Democrats should be bi-partisan on. Obviously a nuclear armed Iran is with Mullahs screaming, "Death to Israel, Death to America," is a big security risk for us. Aside from maybe a few blindingly pro-Israel policy wonks in DC, I would think that most Republicans would want to avoid war with Iran if possible. The Democrats are always hollering about diplomacy and non-violence and war being a "last resort." So why aren't both parties coming together to support aiding the Iranian domestic reform movement?