You have to understand him though, he's in a tough place, he wants so much to distance himself from the previous administration by not wanting to look preachy, and after two wars I can understand why he wants to tone it down, but it has the perverse effect to make him look weaker on the principles.
But he has those principles, I have no doubt, the problem is how to put them into practice without looking like the "Big Bad Bully America".
There's also another problem which we need to understand. If you know the history of Iran, then it's easy to see why Obama is doing what he's doing.
If Obama comes out
too strongly, at least in public, in support of the opposition, then the Iranian regime will start to paint the opposition as a cat's paw of the West. And believe me, those folks in the opposition - even though we call them moderate - will do an about-face if they think that there is undue outside influence (especially from the West) in their affairs. The memories of the Shah and our failed involvement then are still fresh in the minds of most Iranians. They
don't want the West meddling with their government, they want to do it themselves.
So Obama must walk a fine line, and I think he's doing a pretty decent job so far. On the one hand, he must raise legitimate questions about the "election" process in Iran (I like how Biden did it), but at the same time he must ultimately leave it up to the Iranian people to sort it out for themselves. At least, that's in public.
I wouldn't be surprised at all to know that there is likely a number of things going on behind the scenes to assist the Iranian opposition movement.
If I had my druthers, I would like to see Obama take a stronger line publicly, but I understand why he hasn't thus far. Of course, that doesn't prevent anyone else, like some of his most vocal critics, from doing so. And I think they would be spending their energies better by criticizing the Iranian dictatorship and figuring out how to help Iranians get the word out than trying to score political points against Obama.
But that's just me.
