Prayer and Pressure Key to Gaining Freedom in Iran

Can bloggers advance the cause of freedom in Iran? Maybe if we are incessant enough, we can help raise the world's consciousness of the oppression there and foment the kinds of prayer and political and economic pressure that brought the collapse of Soviet Communism and South African apartheid in recent memory.

The independent-minded Jerry Brown, now mayor of Oakland, today posted an article on his blog in which he called for freedom for Iranian journalist Arash Sigarchi who has been imprisoned for criticizing the Iranian regime on his blog. Sigarchi has been sentenced to a fourteen year prison term. Brown also endorsed the Committee to Protect Bloggers. (By the way, when was the last time you heard of a political figure quote Schopehauer as Brown did in today's post? That would almost qualify him for the line Michael J. Fox uses of Michael Douglas's character in The American President: "He's got everybody looking up the word erudite.")

Hugh Hewitt, on his blog and apparently on his radio show today, also pressed the case for Sigarchi and another Iranian dissident blogger, Mojtaba Saminejad. He too has suggested that bloggers in the States uphold the efforts of the Iranian Committee to Protect Bloggers.

Clearly, what's going on in Iran has nothing to do with whether one is conservative or liberal, Republican or Democrat. It's about the Golden Rule and being our brother's and sister's keepers.

Free Sigarchi! Free Saminejad! Pray and pressure. Pray and pressure.

(By the way, this should not be interpreted as an endorsement of war with Iran. It's not!)