The Adult in the Room
I’m sure James will snigger, but here’s Barack Obama today, in a sit down with CNBC, demonstrating that he perfectly understands the various dynamics in play here (if he’s being perhaps a little overly candid). Seriously, if this were a blogger concisely summarizing what the United States President ought to be thinking and understanding, it would probably make my quote of the day.
[It's] important to understand that although there is amazing ferment taking place in Iran, that the difference between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi in terms of their actual policies may not be as great as has been advertised. Either way, we were going to be dealing with an Iranian regime that has historically been hostile to the United States, that has caused some problems in the neighborhood and is pursuing nuclear weapons. And so we’ve got long-term interests in having them not weaponize nuclear power and stop funding organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas. And that would be true whoever came out on top in this election.
The second thing that I think’s important to recognize is that the easiest way for reactionary forces inside Iran to crush reformers is to say it’s the US that is encouraging those reformers.
So what I’ve said is, `Look, it’s up to the Iranian people to make a decision. We are not meddling.’ And, you know, ultimately the question that the leadership in Iran has to answer is their own credibility in the eyes of the Iranian people. And when you’ve got 100,000 people who are out on the streets peacefully protesting, and they’re having to be scattered through violence and gunshots, what that tells me is the Iranian people are not convinced of the legitimacy of the election. And my hope is that the regime responds not with violence, but with a recognition that the universal principles of peaceful expression and democracy are ones that should be affirmed. Am I optimistic that that will happen? You know, I take a wait-and-see approach. Either way, it’s important for the United States to engage in the tough diplomacy around those permanent security concerns that we have–nuclear weapons, funding of terrorism. That’s not going to go away.
It’s a weird feeling when it’s not two sides making intelligent proxy arguments for figureheads who are barely able to articulate them on their own (and in some cases barely seem to understand or care about them), but rather the figurehead himself, out in front. I guess that’s what leadership is?
The twitter ‘misinformation’ campaign on Iran is very interesting.
Regardless as to the origin of these tweets, getting any information whatsoever from a group of newly created accounts that are essentially anonymous is not a bad idea.
However, he goes on to make a reasonable (but not overwhelming) case that these accounts are tied to Israel, which makes sense.
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Comment by daveg — 6/17/2009 @ 10:23 am
I mean “is not a good idea.”
Got to get some more coffee.
Comment by daveg — 6/17/2009 @ 10:28 am
There’s no other way to say this, daveg: that’s one of the dumbest things I’ve heard floated on this site. The implication being, I gather, that there might be some kind of Israeli conspiracy afoot wherein Israeli agents post as Iranian twitterers?
That may be so, though I really doubt it, and I do take the point that trying to assume a full context proportional picture from the Twitterers is a bad idea (I think some, like Andrew Sullivan, are getting sucked in to that). I am also sure it’s true that 20% (or less) of Twitters are accounting for 80% (or more) of Tweets—a pretty standard proportion for such things. But the fact that many tens of thousands of generic Twitter accounts were created right around the same time and are Twittering up a storm is pretty value, and doesn’t really in any way point to an Israeli conspiracy, unless you’re frankly pretty far gone.
Comment by Brad — 6/17/2009 @ 12:11 pm
What made you think I would snigger, Brad? I have a great deal of respect for those who can recognize and articulate the obvious.
Comment by James — 6/17/2009 @ 1:19 pm
Because I’m really resisting the urge to gush about Obama’s response in all this. It looks easy from the outside, but he’s managed a pretty perfect storm of good moves from the beginning of his Presidency up to today to set the stage for this, or namely to withdraw from the stage and create a vacuum where something like this can happen.
The protesters in Iran actively adopting Obama language (“Yes we can!”), Obama’s address to Iran last month on their biggest religious holiday, the perception in the muslim world that the United States is not presently led by a Great Satan but a pretty reasonable and even sympathetic guy, and now finding just the right measure of sticking to his policies and even his justifiably tough rhetoric, but absolutely not falling into the trap of making this our business. I’m looking at John McCain’s response in all this (not to pick on him), which is easy for him to say of course not being President (and would probably be fairly different were he) and I can’t help but think that the constellation of soft power hopes for him as a world leader were not unjustified. I wonder if this present situation would have been playing out like this if we had elected a person who would have widely been seen as a continuation of Bushian aggression and imperialism and almost certainly would have been more meddlesome and bellicose in this situation than the present executive.
A non-falsifiable proposition, to be sure, but my gut tells me that with anybody but Obama, the ruling regime would be reacting much more harshly (for a variety of reasons, including fearing being seen as vulnerable and more confident in their ability to play off the Western world as they usually do) and the masses would be feeling much less empowered and much less supported in a totally ethereal way (Obama being a cipher has its advantages too), the easiest forces for totalitarianism and the status quo (as of last month anyway) would have a ready-made fallback that might well have worked and, if the shit does hit the fan, a United States that would have been much more predisposed to direct (possibly military) involvement down the road the seductiveness of which (in the short term) would have probably overpowered a McCain or even Clinton but would probably, in the long run, snuff out the very forces and motives that the United States wishes to see take root.
I find myself very comforted that we appear to have an adult in the room in the White House during this, and one that is approaching it from a non-ideologically or politically programmed perspective.
Comment by Brad — 6/17/2009 @ 2:08 pm