Why not be on the side of democracy in Iran?

Jonah Goldberg:

Do it, President Obama, please. Take the side of democracy.

Declare yourself and your nation on the side of hope and change where it is more than a slogan and better than a rationalization for ever-bigger government. Stop measuring the success of your diplomacy with Iran by the degree to which the grinning, hate-filled stooge of a clerical junta will "temper" his rhetoric about the pressing need to destroy Israel and slow his ineluctable pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Instead, choose a higher standard. Look to history. Look to the aspirations of the students risking their lives and livelihoods to protest a sham election. Stop fawning over the mythological Muslim street only when it hates America, and look to the real Iranian street at the moment of its greatest need, when its heart may be open to loving America.

You often invoke President Kennedy's pledge to put a man on the moon to justify your domestic agenda. You and your supporters invite comparisons to Camelot. Well, what of John F. Kennedy's most solemn vow? "Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty."

No, we should not bomb Iran, or invade it. Those prices are too steep; those burdens are too heavy. But maybe you could lift a finger for democracy?

...

Democracy in Iran could do so much for Iran and the rest of the world. It could lift them from the rule of the religious bigot despots, and the threat those bigots pose to the rest of the world. Would Obama rather have an agreement with the despots than see them removed by their own people? This is really what marked the difference between Reagan and his supporters and the Democrats when it came to the Soviet Union, yet we all better off with the fall of the Soviets.

There is a moment to be seized and Obama dithers in fear of offending the bigots.