Obama-Iran: Cool is Correct

I know it was just an oversight that you forgot to mention Steny Hoyer, Howard Berman, Ike Skelton, Silvestre Reyes, Henry Waxman, Gary Ackerman, and Robert Wexler.

BOB:   Obviously, Obama intends to run his foreign policy as he ran his campaign.  He will be cool in a crisis.  His messages will be tightly controlled and deliberately considered.  There will be no “bring ‘em on” remarks, no audacious, but ill-thought-out comments.  His actions will be carefully considered.  That is how he ran his campaign and Republicans particularly should know how that worked.   

BARD: You give Obama too much credit for being less than human.  Of course he will make mistakes. Of course he will make ill-considered comments like he did about the Special Olympics. He will occasionally be insensitive.  He's no Jesus Christ, he's human with all the foibles that brings.

I don't believe Obama is holding himself back out of misplaced historical guilt.  He's playing a canny game. I think he realizes that the current Iranian government is trying to make use of any US actions and statements as a rationale for continuing to force its populace back into the sheep pen, e.g. "It is only because of aggressive and illconsidered US statements that our citizens are worked up, so we must calm them with police tactics to retain order for the good of our country..." yada yada yada. 

If Obama can orchestrate an attitude of disapproval without threatening action, it will allow the Iranian people to pick up their own reins and try to reform the country.  We learned that imposing our control on a muslim country doesn't work.  Their reforms have to come from within, and Ahmadinejad is giving them all the fodder they need to keep the reformists active.  I just hope it isn't defeated like Tianamen Square.

Cool and correct

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/31508126#31508126

or appalled and outraged

I bet her family is thrilled that he has been cool and correct

Hello Bard.... thanks for your comment.  I did not intend to make Obama less than human... However, I could not agree more with your observation.  In my view, it hits the nail right on the head.

Hey Braveheart... Thanks for you comment.  No, it was not accidental that I did not mention those people you named... Actually, I had not heard some of their comments, but McCain and Graham have been all over CNN, and I was pretty familiar with their comments.

The young woman who was murdered is a tragedy and I'm certain her family does not want cool.  However, that's an Iranian problem and her family is not very much concerned with American national security.  And that's a major difference.   

Neda's death gave Obama 'permission' to echo the world's disapproval.  Or you could say it actually forced him to react.  If he hadn't said something in the wake of her martyrdom, his callousness would have spoken louder than his reticence.  Obama wants to seem anything but callous, whatever the issue.

I've read what both Senators, John McCain and Lindsay Graham had to say about it and I didn't see anything wrong with what they stated. I didn't hear them dis the president or use the phrase of "bring them on". John didn't even sing " Bomb Bomb Iran". 

Bottom line is that he has gotten tougher on his rhetoric about the Iranian election issues.

He can only go in one direction with this.  If he softens up the muslim world will take that as encouraging weakness, and it will dishearten the 'insurgents' in Iran, meaning the students.  That shouldn't happen.  He'd better watch his steps VERY carefully here and play this as a head game.

From today's CSM:

"Moreover, in an attempt to be pragmatic, Obama wants to keep the door open to engaging with whatever Iranian leadership emerges from the tumult, particularly on issues of national security, such as Iran's nuclear program. Despite the emergence of the country's first real political opposition in three decades, it seems almost certain that supreme leader Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will retain that leadership.

"We're stuck with these guys for the foreseeable future," says Suzanne Maloney, an Iran expert and former State Department official now at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

She adds that Obama is right to resist the temptation to offer specific moral support to those segments of Iranian society emerging as opposition forces. "Any cheerleading we appear to do on behalf of any of these people would only undermine them," Ms. Maloney says. "

So it seems that Obama is withholding encouragement from the green party supporters because he believes he'll have to deal with Ahmadinejad anyway.  Moussavi won't win.  What will he do when Israel bombs Iran because Ahmadinejad wants to nuke Israel (he's already said so)?  Wait.   Isn't Obama drawing down military expenditures?  Hmmm.  I hope he doesn't get caught with his pants down on this one.