Arthur Chrenkoff lands a sweet interview with Michael Ledeen, holder of the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute.

If you were a member of that “war cabinet” what three things you would suggest the United States should do that is not currently doing?

We should be funding more (mostly private) radio and television broadcasting to Syria, Saudi Arabia and Iran. The people in those countries know that they are being lied to by their governments, but they don’t know the truth, especially about their own country. If you read some of the blogs from Iran, for example (and there are lots of them!), you find a reflexive rejection of anything that the government says: mullahs say Bush bad, people believe Bush good, for example. They need information. People in Tehran need to know what’s going on in Isfahan, people in Damascus need to know what’s happening in Aleppo or Beirut, people in Riyadh need to know the latest from the Eastern provinces.

Of course, you have to be careful, because some of the broadcasters are closet supporters of the terror masters, but they are way outnumbered. The Farsi language broadcasters in southern California, England, and Germany, for example, cover a wide range of political opinion, but they generally do a good job. When the revolution gets under way they will serve to “triangulate” communications inside Iran. Someone in Isfahan will report to Germany, and the station there will broadcast back to Iran so people all over the place will be up to date.

Second, I would hammer away at the western trade unions to support the workers’ organizations in Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia. Support politically (yelling and screaming, demonstrating, lobbying their governments) and economically (raising money for a strike fund). The final scene in the revolutionary drama consists of massive demonstrations and strikes, shutting down the economy and demanding that the regime step down.

Third, I would try to use international organizations, even the UN, as fora to denounce the regimes. Words are potent weapons, and we should use them in the revolutionary strategy.

I found number two the most interesting, because it reminded me of Ukraine. When the Orange Revolution took place, the Ukrainians who went to Independence Square basically shut down the economy and the government had to draw upon billions worth of reserves. Strike funds and even minor reserves could go a long way to serve the same purpose.