great article on how freedom was won in ukraineYes, it is. Worth reading it all, too. Here's the LINK to the source.
Pinging my General Interest list here, too.
Exporting the Ukraine miracle
Excerpt:
Notwithstanding the Dec. 26 election, the Orange Revolution is hardly complete. The West should offer expedited NATO and European Union membership to consolidate Ukraine democracy.
In the meantime, we need to apply elsewhere the lessons of Ukraine, which are also the lessons of Georgia, Serbia, Indonesia, South Korea, Taiwan, South Africa, Poland, Lithuania and other lands where despotic regimes have toppled since the original 1986 "people power" revolution swept the Philippines.
An obvious candidate for a similar transformation is Iran. Even as Iranian students have repeatedly taken to the streets to protest their oppressors, and Iranian exiles in Los Angeles have beamed TV and radio programming into their homeland, the U.S. government has largely stood on the sidelines. In 2003, the National Endowment for Democracy supported 23 programs in Ukraine worth $1.9 million. In Iran, there were only two pitiful programs worth $55,000.
This disparity, which also exists for other pro-democracy groups, is perverse because the Iranian regime poses a far bigger threat to the West than Ukraine ever did. (The Ukrainians actually sent troops to join the coalition in Iraq, while the Iranians are trying to sabotage our efforts there.) It's hard to think of a higher priority than overthrow of the mullahs, who are determined to add nuclear weapons to their terror arsenal.
If we're serious about liberating Iran — and that's a big "if" because regime change is not official Bush policy — we'll need to rethink the current sanctions, which haven't in any way dislodged the mullahocracy. The Committee on the Present Danger, a hawkish advocacy group, suggests keeping some sanctions while re-establishing diplomatic ties and lowering barriers for cultural exchanges. The resulting access could be used to help the forces of freedom in Iran.
Democracy in Iran? Sounds improbable, doesn't it? But so, until just a few weeks ago, did democracy in Ukraine.
Please let me know if you want ON or OFF my Yushchenko vs. Yanukovych/Ukraine election ping list!. . .don't be shy.
