BECK: Hear me clearly: This has never just been about Iraq and WMDs. It has always been about changing the face of the Middle East. But the president has done such a horrible job of communicating that idea, and instead he focused everybody on weapons of mass destruction, that now to come out and say that, he has absolutely no credibility.
Look, if you`re the president and you`re sitting there in the Oval Office in 2003, and you`re looking at Iran, you see a country that you believe is the head of the snake, and it`s a country where the people love you and democracy, but the leadership hates you, what do you do? How do you deal with it?
Well, you`ve got a couple of choices. Your first one is to impose sanctions. You could cut off all of the food and the money and everything else, but that`s the last thing you really want to do, because that`s the only thing that could actually turn the people of Iran into your enemy, as well, not just the leadership.
Your second choice is a military option, but, I mean, that wouldn`t have worked for a couple of big reasons. The first one: There`s no way the president could have made the case for war. Look how much trouble he had with Iraq, and there you`re talking about a dictator who had repeatedly defied the U.N.
But, b, and more importantly, the president couldn`t go after Iran at that time because that was an Islamic-run state and it would have set the entire Middle East on fire instantly and the charges of, “This war is a war is against Islam,” would have been believed by most, if not everybody, in the Middle East. Not to mention that Saddam Hussein would have been the first to fill that power vacuum in Iran. He had to go first.
So what do you do, sitting back in 2003? Well, I think that the president figured out that the best people to change Iran are the people of Iran. Let them do the job. We just needed to provide them with a tipping point, something that made them finally decide to rise up, and that`s why we went into Iraq.
The tipping point is democracy. You let the people of Iran hear the knocking of democracy on their front door in Iraq and their back door in Afghanistan, you let them see how close freedom really is and that we will protect them if they rise up, only then would they have the courage to stand up to their regime, which has always meant certain execution in the past.
Remember the words of the president on the eve of war. A new regime in Iraq would serve as a dramatic and inspiring example of freedom for other nations in the region. You`ve got to read between the lines.
Farid Ghadry, he is the president of the Reform Party in Syria. Farid, welcome back to the program.
FARID GHADRY, PRESIDENT, REFORM PARTY OF SYRIA: Thank you for having me back again.
BECK: I thought to myself for the last few years, why has the president not given a Ronald Reagan moment to the people of — you know, when he spoke right to the people of Poland, “Rise up,” why hasn`t he done that to the people of Iran?
GHADRY: Well, I think he`s done it every time the president goes out of his way to speak about democracy and freedom in the Middle East, and he mentions Iran, he mentions Syria, he mentions Lebanon. He is, in fact, encouraging the reformist in those countries.
You cannot imagine the energy that we get every time the president speaks of freedom and democracy in that part of the world. And this is something that`s not very much known by the American public and possibly maybe the White House, the administration, some of them do. And I think the president has been extremely helpful in that regard, and we hope that he will continue on that path.
BECK: We talked yesterday about him, you know, passing a statement that says that we want regime change in Iran. You know, I would hope that we would be able to do that. I don`t see that on the horizon. What would that mean to us, if we actually did that? How would the clerics and President Tom react to that?
GHADRY: Well, I think the moment the president seeks regime change in Syria and Iran, I think you will embolden tremendously the reformist movement, the reformist leaders inside and outside the country, and also the people of Iran. Why? Because the people of Iran will figure out immediate this is a sinking ship, and they will have to take sides.
And you know what happens when a ship sinks? Everybody leaves that ship. So I think it`s really in the hands of the president of the United States. The moment he says regime change in Iran and Syria are a possibility or we would like to have a regime change, you`re going to see a critical mass immediately that will eventually lead to deposing those dictators.
BECK: The worst possible scenario is us to put boots on the ground, because if I read this situation right, the people don`t want us to free them. They like democracy, they like the idea of it, they like the idea of what we have, but they do not want us in their country putting boots on the ground. Am I wrong or right?
GHADRY: You are right in that regard, and I, as a Syrian, do not want boots on the ground, either. However, we do need support of all kinds other than just military support. And that comes in the idea that we need to support reformists, not only morally, but financially, as well.
BECK: Yes, let me ask you. What would you think of the idea of becoming the reverse, I mean, the good version of Hezbollah? Hezbollah comes into a neighborhood, they provide schools and everything else. What about becoming the reverse, the good side of Hezbollah?
GHADRY: That`s very perceptive, Greg. I think, you know, you have to look at why and how Hezbollah became successful. And if you actually can help the reformists in that part of the Middle East duplicate what Hezbollah has done, and do the reverse, and help them in building schools, and help them in building clinics, and help them in smuggling and supporting — smuggling money to the country and supporting poor families, you`re going to see a lot of people, a lot of reformists becoming very, very powerful leaders in that part of the world. And that will pull the rug and the carpet from under Ahmadinejad and Assad of Syria. And I think it`s a great idea.
BECK: Farid, thank you very much. I appreciate it.
GHADRY: Thank you for having me.
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