20 years ago, we watched events in Tiananmen ...

While the movement earned support for its agenda and sympathy abroad through wide international media coverage, the most potent challenge to the legitimacy and authority of the Communist Party since Mao Tse-tung's 1949 victory against the Nationalists was crushed at Tiananmen Square by military force on 3 and 4 June 1989, seven weeks after it had begun. Hundreds of protesters and bystanders were presumed dead, thousands wounded and imprisoned. From documents smuggled out of China and published in the United States, it appears that factional struggles among China's leaders and the fear of international shame delayed military action. President George H. W. Bush, acting upon public outrage, imposed minor diplomatic sanctions, but he subordinated human rights concerns to U.S. business interests, encouraging Bill Clinton to denounce him as "coddling dictators" during the 1992 presidential campaign. In turn, however, Clinton's policies followed the pattern of engaging the Chinese commercially, claiming that trade and openness would facilitate political reforms. This policy was embodied in the ongoing grant of most-favored-nation trade status to China, the jailing of human rights activists not withstanding.

This week, we watch the streets of Tehran. The hunger for freedom knows no boundaries. Let's hope for a happier ending here.

As dusk comes, people gather on the roofs of their apartment buildings and the haunting sound of “Allah-u-Akbar” — God is great — and “Death to the dictator” echoes across the megalopolis.

The Iranian yearning in these cries is immense, a measure of all that was not delivered by the 1979 revolution, when the same cries went up and liberation was promised