Reese Schonfeld: Dan Senor: Talks Loudly, and Carries No Stick at All

Dan Senor, Mitt Romney's senior foreign policy adviser, is still hawking war against Iran. He blames the Obama administration for not supporting the 2008 Green Revolution in Tehran. He suggests that US support might have enabled the protestors to oust Ahmadinejad and the Ayatollah. Fat chance.

I remember the Hungarian Revolution, in 1956, when I was working for United Press/Movietone News, I helped produce and write the television segments we sent out to all our clients.

"I remember the Hungarian Revolution, in 1956, when I was working for United Press/Movietone News, I helped produce and write the television segments we sent out to all our clients"We were very proud of the story, because our German correspondent was the only Western cameraman in Budapest to get film of the Soviet invasion out of Hungary. The carnage was horrific.

Shortly afterwards, we learned that the Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Europe (RFE) had encouraged the Hungarian demonstrators that preceded the Soviet invasion. Both the VOA and RFE had left the impression with the Hungarian revolutionaries that they could expect that the US and other Western nations would come to their aid. John MacCormac, of The New York Times, wrote at the time that "correspondents in Budapest during the uprising have reported the astonishment of the Hungarian people at the failure of the West, and particularly the United States, to help them repel the Soviet attackers." According to MacCormac, both the VOA and RFE quoted Secretary of the State John Foster Dulles when he talked of rolling backs the Soviets and President Eisenhower when he endorsed the Secretary's stand.

MacCormac went on to write that Hungarians "were thoroughly convinced the United States would help them against the Soviet Union." He reported that, on November 2, 1956, Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., our delegate to the United Nations, "recalled pledges given by the United States to assist 'the brave Hungarian people in their struggle for freedom'... Two days later, when Moscow sent the tanks into Budapest to crush the revolution, no more was heard of the promised assistance."

Dan Senor wishes that the Obama administration had supported the Iranian protesters, just as Ike's administration had supported the Hungarians.

What would've happened if we had encouraged the Iranian demonstrators? Would we have sent troops into Tehran to slug it out with the Iranian revolutionary guard? Fat chance. Most of our forces were still tied up in Iraq and Afghanistan.

What likely would've happened is the Iranian demonstrators would have been slaughtered, just as the Hungarians were. The Iranian opposition would've felt just as betrayed as the Hungarians did in 1956.

Dan Senor seems to advocate that the US take a tougher line with the Iranians, but is he willing to see American soldiers die fighting to free Iran from the Ayatollah? Dan Senor talks tough, but is he willing to put American troops where his mouth is? If he is, somebody ought to tell Mitt Romney about it.