What a Soviet Dissident Sees in Iran’s Unrest


French President Emmanuel Macron is deeply concerned. His government has expressed tempered support for the demonstrations in Iran, but for now he is more worried about the reaction of America, Israel and Saudi Arabia.

This week he warned that the full-throated endorsement for the unrest in Iran by these governments “is almost one that would lead us to war.” It reminds him of the “axis of evil.”

Macron, ever the keen student, believes the consensus of most regional experts, who say that the leaderless protests in Iran are likely to fail. What’s more, any full-throated expressions of solidarity will probably endanger the precious nuclear deal his government helped negotiate in 2015. Best to call on both sides to refrain from violence and continue the post-2015 policy of integrating Iran into the community of nations.

Macron is in sync with the European Union’s chief diplomat, Federica Mogherini, who has issued a bland both-sides statement. The German government is singing from the same hymnal.

Now would be a good time for Macron and other European leaders to seek new counsel and listen to Natan Sharansky, the former Soviet dissident and Israeli politician. In an interview this week, Sharansky told me Macron’s response to the Iranian unrest reminded him of the appeasement crowd during the Cold War. It was the kind of thinking that led former president Gerald Ford to refuse a meeting with the Soviet author of “The Gulag Archipelago,” Alexander Solzhenitsyn.