Arguably, the nuclear weapons program is an attempt by the Islamic revolutionaries to keep Iranian nationalists in the pro-government fold. But corruption, economic failure and endemic international troublemaking (with no positive payback) have cost the mullahs. By my count, the mullahs are involved in at least 17 regional and international conflicts (see "Quick and Dirty Guide," Fourth Edition, published by Paladin Press in November 2008). I write "at least" because each of these conflicts has complex "sub-conflicts" that Iran's mullahs engage.

America has its own universalist ideology, and the Declaration of Independence gives a darn good sketch of it. Iran's Khomeinists hate the United States for many reasons, but one of them is the clash of universal visions -- between their narrow, chador-clad, violence-enforced sectarianism (which in the mullahs' view will eventually control the world) and America's liberal revolutionary creed (which the Founding Fathers believed had universal appeal).

I'm not suggesting the American Revolution as a historical analog for Iran, but genuine revolutions pass from immediate emotion to sustained resistance. Sustained revolutions need "centering figures." Iran may have its martyr in Neda, the beautiful woman killed during a demonstration. Mir-Hossein Mousavi -- a former Khomeinist prime minister -- may emerge as a revolutionary leader, a man reshaped by personal ambition and opportunity.

The post-election fracas has exposed political fissures among the Khomeinist elites and confirmed Iranian desire for liberalizing, economically productive change.

As for U.S. policy, the ironic bind in which President Barack Obama finds himself is a vise of his own ideological manufacture. In his speech to the Muslim world (an odd notion, given the Muslim world's fragmentation) delivered the week before Iran's rigged election, Obama took the apologist's route, incorporating a sad mix of legitimate self-critique with factually suspect abasement.

I support diplomatic outreach, but rhetorical capitulation to anti-American propaganda themes used by numerous American enemies, from German Nazis to Russian communists to scores of Third World tribalist tinpots, is myopic. The tyrants fear freedom. Your myopic concessions to tyranny will haunt you.

The haunt came with astonishing speed. July 2009 reveals Iran's mullahs, with whom Obama once proposed negotiations without preconditions, as threatened dictators savagely repressing their own people's demands for change and crushing their hopes. Obama must get on the right side of history, and support life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in Iran.