I'd like him to condemn the violence against the protesters a little more strongly actually.

What's the line? When your enemy is busy destroying himself, don't get in his way? That's the basic principle.

Considering our history in Iran, attempting to support what a sizable percentage of the Iranian public probably views as another CIA backed coup-attempt would be incredibly stupid.

It would give the hard-liners the cover they need to start using force in earnest.

packer is a philistine. writing crap like this -- as if some orchestration of obama statements is really all that important when any stand against the iranian gov at this juncture gives them cover for even more repression.

packer doesn't care...

obama seems to in that he is responding honestly, and not orchestrating some ideological bullshit on the chaos...

I posted something regarding this point earlier tonight:

"It wouldn't be in our best interests to come out in support of Moussavi right now. You know why? John McCain should. Ahmadinejad's future strategy would be modeled after his.

Remember? When Castro and Chavez had some kind words to say about Obama before the election last November? McCain and his Republican cohorts FREAKED OUT. The enemy likes him! He's America's enemy! He's a Manchurian Candidate! AHHHH!

You don't think Ahmadinejad would do the same thing against the reformers?"

It's ridiculous how some politicians think Americans are the only ones that care about sovereignty. Every nation thinks it is exceptional. And everyone has a right to self-determination. Even if it's happening more slowly than some may like.

Ackerman:"the dissenters want the Obama administration to refuse to recognize the Ahmadinejad's claims of victory"

That might have been impactful before the European Union recognized the outcome of the election.

Realism involves looking hard at the world as it is, and not doing things just because they make you feel good. In this case, if coming out strongly in favor of the protesters would strengthen Ahmedinejad's hand, then we should absolutely not do it, however strongly we might be tempted.

Spot on Hilzoy! Spot on.

"Ideals" and "values" are where you find them and what you make of them.

These are tautological words.

A tautology is true by definition. A mere word cannot be a tautology. ;)

Don't confuse yourself Hilzoy by thinking these people actually give a damn about the people of any country other than the ones in their own imagination. We should install the Shah again to represent our version of democratic principles while we go about policing the world for what is best for it since we know so well what that should be. We've proven it so many times you know...oh wait, we never went quite far enough huh?

No matter what Obama does he would be criticized for it by the likes of these goobers.

People like you, and Greenwald, and Benen can be trusted in your criticism of the president but not these people. They search for ways to demean him. Left to these people diplomacy would be an embarrassment to the US. We would be left with "We are all Iranians now".

After Iraq and Afghanistan and Gaza, it's best that we operate by the power of attraction rather than compulsion and focus on getting our own house in order. Single payer any one? Sorry, but in a democracy you're not allowed.

Hmm. That penultimate sentence is interesting, not only as a strategy (to me, it sounds like a pretty good idea), but also because it shows the possibility of the other side realizing that there's a chance to construct a similarly strange-bedfellows coalition, between the Ahmedinejad-loving neocons ("We want our Enemy Du Jour!!1!") and the moderate/liberal idealists who argue America should play a more active role because they want to say/do something in support of "the good guys," whoever those are at any given point.

In fact, this seems a lot like the dynamic that suckered a fair number of non-neocon commentators (Tom Friedman, Richard Cohen; I'm looking at you here) into supporting the Iraq War, on the grounds that, "Well, Saddam's a bad guy, we can't let him stay, no matter what the cost to anyone else, or even ourselves!" You'd think non-neocons would know better than to be useful idiots for conservative causes, but that's part of being susceptible to being a useful idiot: you can't tell when you're being used, because you can't imagine someone would do that.

Hilzoy, another good post.

I'll add two complications:

(1) whatever American/Iranian long-term interests are, both governments have a strong short-term interest in preserving power, which may entail granting the wishes of some segments of society whose short-term interest is different from the long term interest of the people. You can think of complications of this nature for American Democrats and Republicans, Congress and President, and also for Iranian politicians and factions.

(2) if there is something that Obama can do to help (I share your scepticism), there will be pressure on him to do it at exactly the right time, the tipping point; it would be an omission error not to do so. There are people who claim that Truman's refusal to recognize Ho Chi Minh's government of Vietnam was such an omission error; and that a decision not to recognize Israel would have been another. Perhaps there will be mixed reports from Iran about what the dissident leaders really want?

We will be blogging the strike and yet another demonstration at 5PM Tehran today at http://www.nomadlife.org. One of our blogger is currently living in Tehran with the students.

Chris--

Let's not forget that another non-neocon commenter who was suckered into supporting the Iraq War was Packer himself, who spent a fair amount of effort arguing that the DFHs were too stupid to understand how necessary military action against Saddam was.

Packer needs to step away from the keyboard for a good long time to atone for his own stupidity.

packer is a philistine. writing crap like this -- as if some orchestration of obama statements is really all that important when any stand against the iranian gov at this juncture gives them cover for even more repression.

Calling someone a philistine means they are a cultural boor. But historically, Philistine culture was more rich and developed than that of the Israelites around them during that period, so to be historically accurate, you should say "Packer is an Israelite."

Irony.

First, we do not know what the actual election results were. Second, we are dealing with a government whose democratically elected Iranian predecessor was violently overthrown in 1953 by the CIA, to be replaced by the dictator puppet Shah, until he was in turn overthrown by the Mullahs in 1979. So perhaps the current Iranian ruling class has some reason to be suspicious of US meddling in their internal affairs. The problem with screwing around with other peoples' governments is that later your high-sounding phrases regarding their internal political processes tend to ring hollow.

How does your internal editor allow you to write a phrase like "George Bush's foreign policy" ? He had none; Barack Obama may think he has one -- or perhaps Hillary Clinton thinks she has one -- but America does not and cannot have a foreign policy. All of the Americans who actually realize that there is a world outside of the United States would fit in a medium-size concert hall. The rest can only interpret any discussion of events in other countries as fairy tales, allegories in which the characters represent domestic factions.

Realism involves looking hard at the world as it is, and not doing things just because they make you feel good.

No impluse control, therefore not realistic, therefore bound to fail.

As concise a description of the problem with the Mid-East policy of the neocons as I have seen anywhere.

George W. Bush was and is a career white collar corporate criminal whose so-called "foreign policy" -- indeed, whose every "policy" in every sphere -- consisted of nothing more or less than using the power of the government for corrupt purposes of private financial gain for himself, his cronies and financial backers.

Bush was about as "idealistic" as Al Capone and his shamelessly phony "neoconservative" jawboning about "democracy" was nothing but trumped-up, scripted, focus-group-tested drivel to bamboozle and confuse the gullible while he, Dick Cheney, and their gang of crooks used the US military as their private mercenary army to seize control of as much Middle Eastern oil as they could get away with.

"Realism involves looking hard at the world as it is, and not doing things just because they make you feel good."

Who can forget the McGeorge Bundy school of Realism that led to the Vietnam disaster? It wasn't realism; it was Ignorance, Arrogance, and jingoistic Exceptionalism. Packer is edging dangerously close to this school of thought.