PrairiePundit

Michael Ledeen: To start with, the BBC, long considered a shill for the regime by most Iranian dissidents, estimates between one and two million Tehranis demonstrated against the regime on Monday. That’s a big number. So we can say that, at least for the moment, there is a revolutionary mass in the streets of Tehran. There are similar reports from places like Tabriz and Isfahan, so it’s nationwide. For its part, the regime ordered its (Basij and imported Hezbollah) thugs to open fire on the demonstrators. The Guardian , whose reporting from Iran has always been very good (three correspondents expelled in the last ten years, they tell me), thinks that a dozen or so were killed on Monday. And the reports of brutal assaults against student dormitories in several cities are horrifying, even by the mullahs’ low standards. Western governments have expressed dismay at the violence, and Obama, in his eternally narcissistic way, said that he was deeply disturbed by it, and went on to add...

Michael Gerson: In their total war for the right to be dubbed the peace candidate, Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama propose a greater reliance on international institutions as an alternative to unilateralism and ad hoc "coalitions of the willing." Clinton talks of a "preference for multilateralism." Obama urges "more determined U.S. diplomacy at the United Nations ." Even Republican John McCain reflects a pale version of this critique, calling for greater attentiveness to the "collective will of our democratic allies." Multilateralism has become a political haven for politicians fleeing from the exertions of the Bush years. Their promise is implicit: Next time the use of force becomes unavoidable, the sacrifices will be broadly shared. But a vague commitment to multilateralism obscures one of the most difficult challenges the next president will face: While international institutions have never been more needed, they have seldom...

Wall Street Journal Editorial: John McCain gave a major foreign policy address in Los Angeles Wednesday, and if his intention was to convey a subtle message about what distinguishes him from the current White House occupant, he seems to have succeeded -- at least with the press. The presumptive Republican nominee spoke of the need for a "new global compact" based on "mutual respect and trust," of adding "luster to America's image in the world," and of "paying a 'decent respect to the opinions of mankind.'" The media played it all up as an attempt to distance himself from the "unilateral" President Bush, although the Arizona Republican never used that word. We fully understand why Mr. McCain feels the need to show that his Administration would not simply be a third Bush term. But with Mr. Bush's days in office nearing an end, it's worth blowing apart the myth of the "go it alone" Presidency. The truth is t...