``Why, they ask, is the American Left so indifferent to the struggle taking place in Iran? ... why is it mainly neoconservatives who express interest...''
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I'll answer for myself (not the left) why I do not engage in political theory or solutions to struggles in Iran. Short form, I've read Camus, I was in C.O.R.E and had almost ten years of intimate connection with the disability movements. It is vastly important that the people most involved and effected in a struggle speak, act, and theorize for themselves. Part is pragmatic---they know and they are the only ones who know the detail and nature of their struggle. Of course I felt fine about support in the sense of limited rhetoric, flag waving, demo participation, etc. The most important point about self-determination is that is the concrete expression of a political democracy, which usually only resides in theory.
If you understand this answer, then you understand it. If you don't then the best way to get there is to start thinking through what self-determination means in its political sense.
So now my answer to the second part. Why the neoconservatives are interested in engagement. Their motives and their political theories of democracy are precisely opposite to mine. We are political enemies. They are interested in developing their ideas, theories and solutions and imposing them as a universal solution. They believe they hold the key to understanding how political democracy works. And their understanding leads them to become direct participants in other people's struggles. And of course I would add, we have a nice example in Iraq how this works out.
CG