Tuesday, June 16, 2009
The upside of no nuance
Jonathan Beale has posted a column for the BBC, titled "Obama's cautious reaction to Iran." He analyzes President Obama's remarks late Monday afternoon, hopefully suggests that "Mr Obama's reticence may have in fact strengthened the hand of the reformers and improved the chances of fundamental change," and concludes:
"Barack Obama's refusal to condemn the elections before they took place, and caution in responding to the results may still prove to be wise.Read the whole thing.
"But is it a triumph of pragmatism over principle?
"The charge levelled against President Bush was that he was too simplistic, that there was no nuance in his foreign policy, that he only saw the world in black and white.
"But if he were in charge now, we would at least know his verdict on these elections."
I think that Beale might actually miss the ol' cowboy; it must be hard on him not having W to kick around anymore.
5 Comments:
By 
, at
Tue Jun 16, 02:30:00 AM:
The gist I got from the article is that the boy president is being praised for doing nothing. But then I'm just a feeble minded simpleton.
By 
BrendaK, at
Tue Jun 16, 08:10:00 AM:
...But is it a triumph of pragmatism over principle?
Um, well, BHO hasn't shown much in the way of actual principles yet so I'm going to go with (c) the triumph of clueless cowardice.
By Dawnfire82, at
Tue Jun 16, 09:09:00 AM:
We'll see how much triumph there is. Some activists have been asking for Western support. To succeed, they'll probably need it.
The Shah and the USSR fell because they were unwilling to use sufficient force against the population to maintain control. Ahmedenijad has no such scruples; God is on his side, after all.
This will not be a colored revolution where if enough people stand in Inqalab Square then the leadership will step down. There will have to be more blood.
By robotsoul, at
Tue Jun 16, 01:20:00 PM:
a public show of support from Obama would hurt the cause of the protestors it would look like diplomatic over reaching. It would also, as the article points out, put him in the awkward position of having to nego. with whoever is in charge since he made a commitment to open dialouge. For more watch this: http://www.newsy.com/videos/same_old_same_old
By , at
Tue Jun 16, 07:22:00 PM:
Re "the awkward position of having to nego. with whomever is in charge since he made a commitment to open dialogue." That is an awkwardness of his own making. Let him nego. all he wants, with whomever he wants. Short of regime change in Iran, it won't amount to a hill of beans.
