Meanwhile, Iran keeps gaining ground

NY Post ^ | March 21, 2011 | Benny Avni

[Scanian]

'I am with you," President Obama said Sunday in his now-annual address for Nowruz, the Persian New Year. This time, however, he sidestepped the ruling ayatollahs he once tried to lure into "engagement" and instead urged "the young people of Iran" to imitate others in the region and rise up against their oppressors.

Better late than never? Obama must realize that he's now in the regime-change business. Yes, that same enterprise he has dismissed so cavalierly since becoming a US senator.

Deferring to the United Nations as he launched a Libya airstrike over the weekend only obscured his flip. Yes, the Security Council resolution defined the mission as an attempt to "protect civilians," and Obama's aides declare that removing Moammar Khadafy from power isn't part of their mission. But unless the Libyan tyrant is forced to "leave" (as Obama said he must), no defense of civilians can realistically be sustained.

And as Obama's switch on Iran shows us, this won't end with Libya. In the war for the Mideast's soul, the world will increasingly expect America to lead.

Yet Libya, led by a universally hated madman, is easy compared to Iran -- which many Muslims revere, even as others hate it. The mullahs see themselves, and are still seen by many others (including Islamist Sunni rivals), as a model for the Mideast's future, one that's the antithesis of our hopes for the region.

Worse, Tehran started building a winning momentum long before the December uprising in Tunisia that unleashed the rolling challenge to the decades-old regional order. Nor does that upheaval slow Iran's nuclear-weapons progress.