Jonah Goldberg on Obama’s response to the mass protests in Iran:
Reportedly, you are biding your time, waiting to see what happens, as if it is a great mystery. Your campaign lived and breathed YouTube. Check it now, check it often. You and your team promised “soft power” and “smart power.” Well, let’s see some of that. Because by not clearly picking a side, it appears you have chosen the wrong side.
Do you fear antagonizing the powers-that-be in Iran? That ship has sailed. Though I am sure they’re grateful for your eagerness not to roil the seas around them. Is it because you think “leader of the free world” is just another of those Cold War relics best mothballed in favor of a more cosmopolitan and universal awe at your own story?
“Enough about those people bleeding in the street. What do you think of me?” Is that how it is to be?
Obama really drives conservatives to the loony bin, doesn’t he? I mean, the story here is pretty simple: if the Great Satan forcefully intervenes on Mousavi’s side, it gives the clerics just the excuse they need to brand him a foreign stooge and really crack down. Goldberg can’t possibly not know this, can he? Obama, so far, is doing exactly the right thing: deploring the violence but otherwise staying in the background until and unless Mousavi and the protesters themselves ask for more. He’s doing his best not to make it about him, but about them.
