EDITORIAL: Neda and Obama

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It was the sniper shot heard round the world. One moment, a young woman is standing on the sidewalk, watching the Iranian people stand up to the state. A second later, she crumbles to the sidewalk, blood pumping uselessly out of the gunshot wound in her chest. A faceless police sniper has killed Neda Agha Soltan, but also made her immortal. Her murder was videotaped and sent worldwide. Her death is now the defining image of the 2009 Iranian revolution.

For 30 years the world has tolerated this cruel and calculating regime, as it took hostages, paid terrorists and built bombs meant for allied troops in Iraq. Now the people of Iran are pleading their case before the world. While events are still unfolding, some lessons can be drawn regardless of how the revolution ends.

Freedom is universal

As recently as a month ago, many Americans doubted that the Iranian people wanted democratic change. That debate is over. No one can credibly claim that the West is foisting the ideals of freedom on Iran's millions. They are telling us through their actions that these truths are self evident and not limited to any culture, time or place. To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, they are placing before mankind the common sense of the subject in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent.

The phony democracy the Iranian clerics had erected to legitimize their rule is crumbling down on them. For a time, Iranians bought into the idea that their voices counted even in a system in which the vote was manipulated by theocrats handpicking the eligible candidates. But the 2009 election was an outright fraud. Attempts to explain it away have insulted the intelligence of Iranians and the world. The mullahs are offering many insulting rationalizations - there were too many votes for fraud to have worked, that the number of fake ballots would not have changed the final result, or that since vote fraud is illegal in Iran it could not have happened. This is reminiscent of embattled President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad saying there are no homosexuals in Iran even as Iranian courts condemn gays to death. Iran's Guardian Council has admitted there was widespread fraud and that the total votes cast in 50 cities exceeded the number of registered voters. They attempted to downplay this finding on the grounds this occurred in fewer of the 170 cities in which there were claims of fraud, a pitiful example of spin.

But the debate over the election is simply a catalyst. The uprising has moved well beyond the ballot issue. We are witnessing 30 years of frustration pouring into the streets. We see demands for a livable minimum wage, the end to compulsory veiling for women, freeing prisoners of conscience, banning the death penalty and guarantees for the rights to free expression, organization, strike and protest. The people don't want a recount; they want what they have been chanting for days: "death to the dictator." This is one step short of a true revolutionary call for the end of the regime itself. Freedom is on display in the streets of Iran. The people are taking back their sovereignty, making a stand in defense of their inalienable rights.

And in their wake, they have left the tattered claims of the cultural relativists.

The poverty of Islamic rule

The Iranian uprising is a direct challenge to the radical Islamist program pursued in Iran since the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's 1979 revolution. The Iranian people have had enough of radical clerical rule. This is not to say they are not, for the most part, believing Muslims. They are simply people more modern than their rulers. They are objecting to mullahs exploiting their faith to bolster a corrupt, repressive theocracy.

The Islamic regime stands and falls on its ability to maintain its religious legitimacy. That authority is now in question, partly due to the regime's tactical mistakes. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei quickly declared the tainted election results a "divine assessment" and since has stood firmly behind this conclusion. Once God is invoked it is hard to backtrack.