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Obama's Temperament
Jacob Heilbrunn praises Obama's reaction to the Iranian election crisis:
Clearly Obama was caught flatfooted by the protests. But he does seem to be carefully ratcheting up his criticisms of the mullahs. In a Tuesday interview with CNBC, Obama said that 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 respond not with violence, but with a recognition that the universal principles of peaceful expression and democracy are ones that should be affirmed."
....The truth is that the impressive thing has been how well Obama has handled the crisis....Obama's basic approach has been to follow the foreign policy equivalent of the
Hippocratic Oath: "First, do no harm." Imagine the obloquy that would greet Obama if he were to champion the demonstrators and help to create a bloodbath, as Radio Free Europe did during the 1956 Hungarian revolution, when it encouraged Hungarians to revolt by assuring them that they had backing of the West, which they didn't. So far, Obama has shrewdly hewed to a middle course that allows him some flexibility in dealing with Iran.
This, of course, is Obama's basic modus operandi for everything. He doesn't feel like he has to react immediately to every provocation. When he does, his responses are usually measured and sober. He looks for middle ground. He's willing to wait for the right time to push the boundaries a little further in the direction of his choosing.
This is sometimes intensely frustrating. The gay community, for example, is up in arms over his lack of action on issues like DOMA and DADT. But there shouldn't be any surprise about that. It was obvious throughout the entire campaign season that this is how he works. He'll let the military stew over DADT for a while until they basically ask him to change it, rather than the other way around. It might take longer, but he figures — probably correctly — that the end result will be better for everyone. Ditto for DOMA, which doesn't yet have the votes in Congress for repeal.
And ditto for lots of other stuff. He's shown a disturbing willingness to compromise on financial regulation and healthcare. He hasn't engaged much with the Waxman-Markey climate bill as it slowly gets watered down into nothing. He's a cautious guy who doesn't take a lot of chances unless he feels some real pressure to do so. Paradoxically, this is exactly what I expected from him but I find myself disappointed anyway. A little bit more fire in the belly would be welcome.
But he is who he is, and the same instincts that disappoint us on some issues serve him well on others. So far, anyway. The next few months — possibly the next few days in Iran — will tell us just how much real hope and change Obama's temperament produces when the rubber finally hits the road.
I actually think that
I actually think that Obama's problem with everything is that he tries to intellectualize each and every problem, which might be smart on the one hand it but it is not leadership. There are no 'shining cities on the hill' in Obama's vision, if indeed he has any vision at all.
As far as Iran goes, the proof that he had it wrong: Kissinger backed Obama. What's happening in Iran has the potential to be a game changer and Obama whiffed his 'at bat'.
care to elaborate...
... on that whiffing part?
bullshit
believe it or not THERE IS NO SHINING CITY ON THE HILL and we just went through 8 years with a president that didn't intellectualize ANYTHING. so i'll take intellectualizing everytime.
Obama's Modus Operandi
Kevin, I agree with most everything you say about Obama's temperament. And it often does drive me crazy too. I was a bit relieved though to get e-mail from his WH universal healthcare advocacy group (and one from Obama personally) asking for participation in a grass-roots effort to let Congress know that taking universal healthcare off the table is unacceptable. So on this issue I think he will become more active and demand a universal option at least. He's working the internet like he did in his campaign. Also town hall meetings and a TV presentation on ABC next Wednesday evening. Anyway, I haven't given up hope on this issue. His response on the Iran election and demonstrations was excellent. I tremble to think what Bush would have had to say about it.
I agree with Nepta
I cannot imagine what the US response would have been in the Bush Era. This is about the will of the Iranian people. Iran is full of smart eductated and contrary to notions held in the west, informed. They know what they have got. One could argue that they are inspired by the change they saw in the last US election. This is the begining of something there is no doubt and Obama's restraint is very prudent at this juncture.
But the early bird usually
But the early bird usually gets the worm.
Obama had the chance to put some pressure on the mullahs to change, but he blew it. Now, with no pressure from the outside, especially the U.S., the mullahs have told the demostrators to stop or "no soup for you" - so to speak.
And if the U.S. isn't going to stand up for the demonstrators, you can be sure the rest of the world won't. And even if countries like Canada and Germany do issue strong warnings to the Iranian government, Tehran knows it's pure bluster because without the U.S., Europe and Canada have no way of doing anything.
I think Obama is pausing not because he's wise and this is his grand strategy. He's pausing because the American people aren't that thrilled with his actions so far. He and he alone orchestrated the whole GM and Chrysler deals and polls have shown the U.S. populace (outside of the UAW) aren't too thrilled with the results.
Health care reform, or change - whatever you want to call it - will be a debacle. If he were smart, he'd steer clear because there is no way to fix it, or change it, without some monied interests fouling it up for everyone. A pure public option, despite what proponents say, is going to be quite expensive and riddled with bureaucratic snafus.
Then, you have some in the media questioning his IG firings. I'm sure he thought his pals in the media would have his back; that only Bush's firings would make news. Now, however, people are starting to notice that his actions and asking questions.
So no, I don't think Obama is some wise politician who knows how to get things done. Frankly, he's quite the opposite. He's gone from community organizer to U.S. Senator to POTUS in a short amount of time and his inexperience is starting to show.
on early birds & worms
"Obama had the chance to put some pressure on the mullahs to change, but he blew it. Now, with no pressure from the outside, especially the U.S., the mullahs have told the demostrators to stop or "no soup for you" - so to speak."
Tell us how US support lends even the faintest shred of credibility to the Iranian opposition where it matters -- in Iran. In what universe do Iranian mullahs -- or any mullahs, for that matter -- respond favorably to US pressure? Go ahead & tell us exactly what kind of pressure the US could apply to get the Iranian opposition the new election they desire. Where do you imagine we've been storing this political capital that allows us to lecture them about their domestic affairs while we wage concurrent wars against their coreligionists, and on their borders? And how is this going to help us when it comes time to deal with their nuclear program?
Junebug if you had been
Junebug if you had been keeping up with the news instead of just spouting opinion you'd know that the government of the United States of America has been on the ground in Iran actively supporting the demonstrators. It's called covet operations. Should I Google it for you?
Who knows what inspiration the demonstrators would have gotten from an overt show of support by the President of the United States? But we'll never know will we? This is one of the reasons liberals mess up foreign policy. This was our opportunity to change the political dynamics in Iran and Obama came out with a policy statement with a 100% Approved stamp from Harvard.
Of course if you don't believe the demonstrators deserved this one small chance, then fine, just say so. But then you probably didn't believe the Berlin wall would come down either.
"This is one of the reasons liberals mess up foreign policy."
I haven't laughed so hard since that episode in The Larry Sanders Show when Hank bought that ground floor revolving restaurant.
bullshit
where have you been the last 30 years . i don't give a shit what google says, our country has been on the outside looking in in iran for over 30 years. all they need is for the u.s. to jump into their politics again. i just love how the freedom loving republicans like to butt into other countries politics. thats all we need is ANOTHER GOODAMN WAR IN THE MIDDLE EAST and use the excuse of just trying to help.
Bad analogy
Like most who support jumping in without thought, you don't understand the way real adults do things. Wait for it: Obama will be proven right, and you, once more, will not see why you were so wrong.
Possibly
He may be thoughtful, sober and circumspect, just as you say.
Or, much more likely, he is an incompetent with no executive experience who is in way over his head.
He, being pro-Muslim, doesn't hesitate to tell Israel (an ally) how to do things but Allah forbid that he take a tough stance with the murderous Iranians.
Argument by trite sayings
You know, I am less and less persuaded by arguments based on nice sound bites and sayings. For example, 'shining castle on the hill' and 'the early bird gets the worm.'
We just suffered through eight years of that and look what it got us. I find the use of such sayings indicative of the backward thought process of an authoritarian follower. They observe something and then after the fact pick the saying that applied.
How do we know whether this is a case of 'the early bird gets the worm' or 'good things come to he who waits?" As rational, logical arguments these have no credibility and are rather useless at predicting future events. They are worthless in providing credibility or support to one's position.
Tripp
It's called 'inspiration'
It's called 'inspiration' Tripp. Leaders inspire. They are forward thinking, risk taking, forging ahead in their actions, they are poetic in words and deeds. Backward looking? Observing after the fact? Perhaps you've never heard of Roosevelt- "The only thing we have to fear...", Kennedy- "Ask not..." Martin Luther King- "I have a dream..." Reagan- "A shining hill..." Oh, sorry, you're right once again Tripp, they didn't say those things until the end of their careers.
Leaders inspire Tripp, that's why we don't elect accountants as Presidents and why we didn't re-elect Carter.
Avoid cliches like the plague
Anonymous is definitely thinking outside the box today, and marching to the beat of a different drummer. We are so on the same page, dude.
And let's not forget, "Mr
And let's not forget, "Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall". And that especially is a fine example of leadership since if you have read the history behind it, the State Department bureaucrats cringed, cringed when they found out he was going to say that (not to say what the Democrats said afterwards).
Thanks for that lesson, but
Thanks for that lesson, but what you said seems at best only half ways correct.
Leaders inspire, and then they *follow through with action*.
And we're still waiting for much of the follow-through action. Hopefully, it will come in Obama's case. But at the moment there seems quite a bit of need piling up in that department.
bullshit
and with the exception of that goddamn fool ronald regan, roosevelt , kennedy , king and even carter would probably do just what obama is dong now.
What about ENDA?
Don't tell me ENDA couldn't sail through this Congress right now, all except for maybe a few noises about a Senate fillibuster that Snowe and Collins would quickly snuff out. So why isn't Obama calling for that, at least? It's already been on the agenda for years. His refusal to do anything about ENDA goes beyond caution and into a refusal to use his clout on anything other than the very central core of his agenda.
It's true that we're not
It's true that we're not seeing full-court press on much of anything. OTOH I'm relieved we no longer have an administration going full speed in the worst possible direction on every issue, with predictable horrific results, as we did these past eight years.
The sad fact is that there is no actual progressive political party in the U.S., just a moderate pro-business party and a stark raving mad extremist authoritarian party. If we could kill off the latter we might be able to put some effective progressive pressure on the former.
"How do we know whether this
"How do we know whether this is a case of 'the early bird gets the worm' or 'good things come to he who waits?"
Well Tripp, since the mullahs have told the opposition to stand down and accept the results or else, then I doubt good things will come to those who wait. The world, and the U.S., had the chance to support the demonstrators and put pressure on the mullahs. They missed that chance. There's no going back now. If the world had vocalized their support to the protestors earlier, the mullahs might not have been so bold. So unfortunately for you, in this case the early bird would have gotten the worm.
more birds & worms
"The world, and the U.S., had the chance to support the demonstrators and put pressure on the mullahs. They missed that chance. There's no going back now. If the world had vocalized their support to the protestors earlier, the mullahs might not have been so bold."
Because if the last 30 years have taught us anything, it's that Iranian mullahs desperately crave the West's approval, particularly that of the US, and we have a long track record of bending them to our will.
Are you this stupid 24 hours a day, or is this just an afternoon thing?
And if you disagree with
And if you disagree with Junebug, you're stupid. That's how liberals cut off debate. And I thought just Republican were vile and mean spirited.
stupid is as stupid does
It is, in a word, stupid to go on about the moral suasion America has with Iran, particularly when it comes to their domestic affairs. It completely ignores -- whether out of convenience or just plain ignorance -- the role America had in overthrowing a democratically elected prime minister there, and in propping up the brutal & autocratic Shah, to say nothing of our piss-poor record on pretty much everything in the Middle East. If America were to embrace the Iranian opposition at a moment as fragile as this, it would be the kiss of death. It would give the mullahs a golden opportunity to delegitimize the nascent opposition, portraying them as nothing but American stooges. So you're not stupid because you disagree with me. You're stupid because you have absolutely no clue why Iranians don't take America seriously when it comes to democratic principles & Iranian self-rule.
bullshit
junebug's statement was just so stupid that that was the only honest response i think anyone could make
Care to explicate that a bit?
You've sort of made that statement repeatedly now. Would you, at some point, care to explicate a bit on what kind of support you are thinking of. And when you do so, would you mind to assess it against the 'support' George H.W. Bush provided to the Shiites and the Kurds at the end of the first Gulf war.
Or are you prepared to send in the US military this time? If not, then maybe the minimum 'support' the US government can provide to the demonstrators is to not provide ammunition against them to the hardliners in Tehran.
Obama, with his Krell Brain,
Obama, with his Krell Brain, is playing 11 dimensional chess.
We do not have the capability of even beginning to understand. You'll see though, it will all fall into shape in the fourth act, after the commercial break.
Maybe Everyone Needs to Take a Vacation
The necessity of daily blogging inevitably leads to criticizing incomplete and unrealized policies. These things take time and the pre-judgement that inevitably pops up should the administration dare to not make an explicit prime-time detailed announcement and then enact the plan that night is really getting bothersome. I expect this sort of thing from hacks like Ezra Klein and Megan McArdle (who seem to fill a greater space in the Drum/Cowen universe daily), but it's starting to get old how quickly their musings become the conventional wisdom these days.
This isn't a new pattern. A year ago it was, "Obama needs to stop prevaricating and attack Hillary -- he's letting us down." Then we had the attacks on Geithner, who has been shown to perform better than anyone gave him credit (and I think will be appreciated even more in a few years). Now it's health care (which at this point has no concrete form, but which Obama continues to publicly support even if Klein needs a new headline for his WaPo blog), or Waxman-Markley (which has no hope of becoming a serious bill) or Iran (which seems to be working out about as well as could be hoped, and which will present challenges far into the future regardless of the election outcomes).
Oh well, I guess I'm just a little crotchety today. I'm used to reading baseless attacks over at The Corner, I even enjoy the fits Obama causes them. To read the same fantasy work on the left, however, really bugs me.
Set up
As anyone that has done anything in the real world knows, the set up of a project takes a while and the outcome is very dependent on how well the set up is done.
Mr. Obama is doing very well so far and his set up behavior is above average. He does have 4 years to accomplish his project.
Quit whining.
"We are accustomed to the new land yet attached to the old country" - anon
I think most Americans are
I think most Americans are way too impatient. Obama has only been President for 6 months. For crying out loud, give the guy a chance. We aren't going to get everything overnight like we used to do as kids at Christmas. It seems there is nothing that will make people happy unless, Obama charges forward with sword in hand. We went through that for 8 years; and, it was scary. A little introspection is needed to solve big problems.
Carter has always inspired me with his kindness and charity. And, I would rather have a born-again Christian like Carter than the hypocritical GWB. who claimed to be born-again. His actions spoke louder than his words. And, they were monstrous, torturous actions--war criminal actions.
Speaking of At Bats,
Junebug is batting 1000 on this thread. Tripp doing an excellent job on cleanup.
I always expect the best from both of you, and am seldom disappointed.
Surrendering Too Much on Health Care
tagged as:- solution
If we don't have health care reform with a robust public option.... we don't have health care reform.
He needs to not be seduced by the phony "middle way" of regional co-ops, which inhibit people moving from state to state and job to job.
Reform is reform, but too much water does not make soup.
Compromise can undermine achievement of the goal and turn a good reform try into more stupid government.
I also want to say your picture/avatar is great.
Real Agenda
It's easy to overthink the proper Obama response. Sure, intelligent conservatives, if there were any, could wonder if his statements should have been more forthright. And sure we liberals can respond with geopolitics of our own, how American support for liberalization could actually backfire, associating them with imperialists, splintering off some of their supporters, and lending legitimacy to the militarists there.
But take a deep breath first, and you realize that it's way overblown. First, Obama really has addressed the region more overtly than Bush since his Axis of Evil speech. When he went to Cairo, he insisted on democracy. Biden spoke early about the election returns. And it's pretty certain that Obama's speeches and change in Bush policy helped with what turned out to be Moussavi support in the votes and then a huge protest. If Moussavi had been declared victor, you don't think the right would now be crediting Bush's Iraq war? Not that they're crediting him for A.'s victor in the preceding election.
Second, there's a limit to what Obama can say because we don't know for a fact what the vote count was, only that votes were stolen and that the regime is putting down democracy. And third, what's the difference? Protesters are already out there in a mass.
You have to think that this plea for support for democracy is cover for a real agenda, which is threat of military action, and a threat (since it'd be ignored) that we'd carry through. They just want another war, and they don't seem to have noted what that would mean.
Once again I see bold words
Once again I see bold words with little behind them. How, exactly, are we to 'Put pressure on the Mullahs."
I'd love to hear the details of what you think we should have done. So here you go, pretend you are the President, what would you do?
I'm all ears.
Because from where I sit you look like children demanding that your parents make it stop raining.
Tripp
From an Iranian Blog
From an Iranian Blog translated from Persian posted on Huff Po about the the demonstrations tomorrow. Tell me, are there no words of support our President could have given to the demonstrators for their chance, perhaps the only chance they will have in their lifetime to shape their future?
Look, the Mullahs are already under great pressure, why else would the Supreme Mullah make his public address this morning? Anytime you get 500,000 demonstrators in the street the political establishment is under pressure. Obama could have added to it merely by voicing his strong support. Instead he played it safe, that's all I was saying Tripp. I don't believe Kennedy, Reagan, MLK, Bishop Tutu, even W, as much as you hate him, would have delivered anything close to what Obama did. If nothing else Tripp, let's agree that these courageous people deserve our prayers.
"I will participate in the demonstrations tomorrow. Maybe they will turn violent. Maybe I will be one of the people who is going to get killed. I'm listening to all my favorite music. I even want to dance to a few songs. I always wanted to have very narrow eyebrows. Yes, maybe I will go to the salon before I go tomorrow! There are a few great movie scenes that I also have to see. I should drop by the library, too. It's worth to read the poems of Forough and Shamloo again. All family pictures have to be reviewed, too. I have to call my friends as well to say goodbye. All I have are two bookshelves which I told my family who should receive them. I'm two units away from getting my bachelors degree but who cares about that. My mind is very chaotic. I wrote these random sentences for the next generation so they know we were not just emotional and under peer pressure. So they know that we did everything we could to create a better future for them. So they know that our ancestors surrendered to Arabs and Mongols but did not surrender to despotism. This note is dedicated to tomorrow's children..."
President of Iran
Anonymous,
I appreciate your empathy over the possible stolen election in Iran and those who are demonstrating against such perceived election fraud. The thing is, the presidency of Iran is not like the presidency in the US. Whoever becomes president of Iran will be subordinate to the Supreme Leader. Mousavi would simply not be able to 'change' anything without the cooperation of Khamenei. I was just reading Mousavi's 'platform' and many of his ideas are very good: getting rid of the 'moral police,' giving women more rights, etc. He does, though, insist on Iran's right to enrich uranium for nuclear power purposes so there's no change on that issue. He was the last prime minister of Iran during the 80's and the Iran/Iraq War. From what I've been reading there is a Supreme Leader power struggle going on behind all of this involving a man named Rafsanjani, a quite wealthy and powerful man. We in the US don't get the full information about what's really going on or what's at stake here. I recommend reading www.atimes.com for information on the subject. But even then, the number of players, all of whom we're basically unfamiliar with, is sort of mind-boggling. Suffice it to say that the real goal of all this is to depose Khamenei. And to the extent that this is true, Obama would hardly want to interfere in any way that would make such an event less likely. Better to stay quiet.
I don't agree with you
I don't agree with you nepeta but it's okay to disagree, that's why we have the debate. The thing is this could have been Obama's moment in history, his opportunity to leave his mark on the Middle East early in his administration and to achieve a result in Iran that Bush tried- and may now be ultimately succeeding at- in Iraq, but without the cost in billions and in many lives, but now we will never know.
I guess the answer is: stay tuned!
Obama Action?
I still don't have a clue what you would expect Obama to do or say that would have a positive impact on the situation. If I've missed it upthread, my apologies. Remember that the US is hoping the Iranians will help us pacify Afghanistan, ironically enough (a project I totally disagree with, btw). The US can't use military force in an Iranian domestic political crisis, nor can it threaten its use even if there's bloodshed. This is an Iranian problem that is best left to the Iranians to solve.
Words, nepeta, words. I
Words, nepeta, words. I wanted Obama to show some balls and
use strong words in support of the demonstrators, that's really all he can do ( this was the main point in my first post- that he's not a leader, he's an intellectual). Even last night Obama came out again with another thud.
Today may be a tipping point, will the demonstrators turn out in the face of the Supreme Mullahs' threat of violence? If they do, they do so knowing that the President of the United States thinks this is a "debate". Would it make any difference if instead he had challenged them to "Live Free or Die"? (I mean that as hyperbole).
I guess we'll never know.
far be it from anyone here...
... to interfere with your love of all things testicular, but your fantasies about Undersecretary of State Jean-Claude Van Damme don't have any place in foreign-policy discussions. And American calls to respect democratic principles mean precious little in the Iranian context, as even the most tenuous grasp of our foreign relations with them would indicate to you. American interference in Iran's domestic affairs runs the very serious risk of stripping the uprising of any legitimacy in the only place where that that legitimacy matters at the moment -- in Iran.
And here's a news flash -- we tried your testosterone-driven foreign policy for eight grueling years under Bush. It was a resounding failure, and we're still dealing with the hangover.
I won't go any further
I won't go any further Junebug. You've taken my original theses that Obama is more intellect than leader and twisted it into equating it with testosterone driven foreign policy. As far as what you've written above, especially with regards "American calls to respect democratic principles mean previous little in the Iranian context" I think this is flat out wrong. Clearly we read difference sources and come to different conclusions but I come to mine without having to rely on Wikipedia as a source (link) as you've done. In fact i would encourage you to expand your material beyond Wikipedia as it is fraught with errors and misrepresentations. In fact I can recommend a series of Iranian Blogs I've been reading for five or six years now and I assure you they are in an entirely different camp that you.
Back to my original comment about Obama's lack of leadership here is what your guy read from the teleprompter today,
"As I said in Cairo, suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. The Iranian people will ultimately judge the actions of their own government. If the Iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it must respect the dignity of its own people and govern through consent, not coercion.
Martin Luther King once said - "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." I believe that. The international community believes that. And right now, we are bearing witness to the Iranian peoples' belief in that truth, and we will continue to bear witness."
"Suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away". Now that's powerful, inspirational stuff. No wonder he's soooo popular.
okay, so you've wisely reconsidered your balls comment
You're entitled to your own opinion, but you're not entitled to a version of history that omits the CIA's role in 1953's overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian leader. You can't simply wish away the fact that the US propped up the brutal dictator, Reza Pahlavi, for decades. In short, there are reasons that the mullahs are in power, and there are reasons that they are able to effectively demonize us, and they largely have to do with our own actions. You may not like those facts, and you may cast aspersions on them simply because they're available in Wikipedia, but you can't simply wish them away.
I will close, though, by agreeing with you on the moving quality of Obama's words. It's worth noting that he chose to emphasize the Iranian people (referring to them four times) and the international community & universal ideals (again, four mentions), while mentioning the Iranian government twice, and the United States just once. This isn't about us, or what we say. It's about them. Stop obsessing about our role in this thing.
the dispositional giveaway
There would seem to be somewhat of a dead giveaway of your overall disposition towards that 'guy' right there.
say what?
There is a funny thing here.
"Words, nepeta, words. I wanted Obama to show some balls and
use strong words in support of the demonstrators, that's really all he can do ( this was the main point in my first post- that he's not a leader, he's an intellectual)."
Every word coming from people participating in the struggle in Iran, every Iranian expatriate including the women who won a Nobel Prize for her activist work in Iran, every actual ideologically unaligned Iranian expert, and every top tier foreign policy expert from both parties and basically every person on planet earth who knows anything beyond the headlines about Iran says that he was right to NOT do what you say.
The only people who seem to think he is wrong are the same hardcore ideologues who thought the Iraqi people would throw rose petals at our feet.
So I'm just curious as to what facts you have this opinion grounded in. Or is this just one of those gut instinct things?
The regime was in fact desperate for him to say something, anything that they could propagandise as US interference and paint the resistance as dupes.
The only thing Obama could say to have a positive effect involved reverse psychology and completely separating the results of the election from US interests.
Other than that anything he said was to set the context for the rest of the world.
And if people didn't demand some talk out of him nothing at all probably would have been better.
Well, maybe Obama can tell
Well, maybe Obama can tell the mullahs what to do in the same manner he told the Israelis. He can also pledge his support to the Iranian people and subtly remind Iran that American forces are on Tehran's flanks, ready to answer any "bloodbaths" that the government threatened.
There are plenty of options, above the table and below. Any of them are better than sitting back and letting the two sides "debate." (FYI, I like his euphemisms.)
It really doesn't matter at this point since the mullahs have no international pressure. They can do what they want, up to and including bloodbaths and they can rest easy knowing Obama will sit back and do nothing.
As a non-white immigrant to
As a non-white immigrant to this country (and of course as an infinitely less importance person), who has navigated through the power structures of an Ivy League University and major corporations, I can understand his reluctance to challenge the entrenched status quo. If you do not learn very early not to hit the walls, you are likely to be wounded very quickly.
A measured approach
You can look at Obama's efforts at regulating the financial industry as "a willingness to compromise." Or you can see it for what it is: a decision to let the political power of the banking industry remain intact, ensuring their corporate cultures, exorbitant pay, and sway over Congress continue unchecked.
The System
I understand your frustration with Obama and the financial 'reform' stuff and quite honestly, quite a lot of other issues too. I think we've just got to accept the fact that Obama believes completely in the system, both the capitalist one and the political one, and possibly the military one too. He wasn't a sleeper socialist, which I was hoping . But I still think he's more liberal, within those bounds, than any Dem president we've had in a very long time. He's the best we can elect at this point in time. At least that's what I perceived during the campaign and still believe. Those bounds are restrictive though, no doubt about it.
Offer something to Iran to count their vote or have a do-over?
Well, should we?
See, most anything we could do would attract naysayers like flies...big flies.
We can challenge them to uphold their own ideals and we can make it clear the world will not passively observe their lies & violence against peaceful citizens.
Whatever they do now has to affect the way the world considers everything they do in the future.
Are they truly men of God or just power-mongers?
Are they real democrats or just using Democracy to pacify some people while fundamentally inflicting(!) their form of theocracy on all Iranians (and even the region beyond their borders)?
Could anything they say with regard to international relations be trusted?
Could we believe anything they might say about their nuclear capabilities?
How they act now will foreshadow how they might act in the future.