Over at The Opinionator they round up some blog reaction to Barack Obama’s increasingly tough talk on Iran and then say this:
At Mother Jones, Kevin Drum remarked on the shift in tone on Iran without being so fazed by it.
Reading this reminded me of one of the dangers of blogging: it’s such a conversational medium that you sometimes forget which parts you’ve said aloud and which parts you haven’t. I’ve been emailing and chatting (and just thinking) about Iran the same as everyone else, and one of the things I’ve been emailing and chatting and thinking about is the strong likelihood that the Iranian regime is going to crack down ever harder as the protests continue, producing ever greater brutality and ever greater bloodshed. So far, for good and sound reasons, Obama has taken a restrained tone toward this, but if it continues he’s obviously going to react ever more strongly and more concretely. And he’ll have to do it without either overpromising or actively making things worse for the protesters. It’s already a tough tightrope to walk, and it’s going to get tougher.
So the reason I wasn’t fazed by Obama’s statement today is because I’ve been expecting it all along. And unless the opposition has already fizzled, I expect Obama’s position to get even more difficult. I haven’t actually said any of that on the blog, however, which might make my reaction today seem a little jaded. Really, though, it wasn’t: it was just the natural endpoint of a conversation I’ve been having for the past week outside the blog. Now, with this post, I’m letting the blog catch up to my brain. Finally.
