Posted on 06/23/2009 9:06:32 AM PDT by pissant
No, I’m really not kidding about this. The Washington Post has the story:
But Obama’s shades-of-gray approach rejects comparison to an era when Communist bloc dissidents had virtually no access to the Western media and the world was more neatly divided between a pair of superpowers, not complicated by the set of ambitious regional powers such as Iran that the Obama administration is seeking to manage.
Since taking office, Obama has argued that reclaiming America’s moral authority by ending torture and closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay provides essential diplomatic leverage to influence events in such strategic parts of the world as the Middle East and Central Asia. The speech he delivered to the Islamic world in Cairo eights days before the June 12 Iranian election sought to do that by providing what the president saw as an unvarnished accounting of U.S. policy in Iran, Iraq, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“We’re trying to promote a foreign policy that advances our interests, not that makes us feel good about ourselves,” said a senior administration official who, like others, declined to be identified, citing the sensitivity of the issue.
Obama’s approach to Iran, including his assertion that the unrest there represents a debate among Iranians unrelated to the United States, is an acknowledgment that a U.S. president’s words have a limited ability to alter foreign events in real time and could do more harm than good. But privately Obama advisers are crediting his Cairo speech for inspiring the protesters, especially the young ones, who are now posing the most direct challenge to the republic’s Islamic authority in its 30-year history.
This is the most despicable, self-serving, and arrogant spin I’ve seen yet from this White House, and that’s saying something. Obama gave a speech, and suddenly the people of Iran discovered that they’re being ruled by tyrants? Never mind that two weeks passed between the speech and the uprising, and that the very obvious trigger for the unrest was the incompetent manner in which the mullahs rigged the election for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Never mind the fact that this President took a full week to even sound like a watered-down Nicolas Sarkozy, let alone the leader of the free world.
This is very obviously an attempt at damage control. Obama has gotten hammered for staying behind the curve of Western leaders in the defense of liberty, freedom, and human rights. He has preferred to stay on the sidelines in the hope that silence will make the mullahs like him enough to grant him an audience, while Sarkozy, Angela Merkel, and the Brits slam the mullahcracy for its brutal treatment of political opposition. Now, suddenly, Obama wants to claim credit for getting their first with his Cairo speech — which had nothing to do with overthrowing mullahs, and in fact had only a passing mention of democracy as an official US policy in the Middle East.
On the grand scale of things, I’d say that the establishment of democracy in Iraq had more influence on the Iranians than anything Obama’s managed to say, and I wouldn’t go so far to make it a proximate cause, or much more than a tertiary influence, after the stolen election and decades of repression by the mullahs.
Besides, how impressed do you think Iranians are with Obama’s open invitation to the mullahs for a 4th of July BBQ? Think that inspires them to demand liberty?
Despicable, and shame on the Washington Post for not calling them on it.
Update: I meant to write two weeks, not two months, between the Cairo speech (6/4) and the uprising. It’s fixed.
Update II: Jim Geraghty makes a great point:
Remember how it was important to recognize that these protests in Iran were triggered by ordinary Iranians’ response to the election, and it was important for the U.S. government to be quiet, soft-spoken, and understated in its response to evolving events? Remember when the most important thing was that the Iranians, and the world, conclude that this uprising was generated entirely by internal sources?
Yeah, apparently that’s no longer the case.
So now can we get a full-throated cry of support for freedom and liberty from the supposed leader of the Free World?
Right. And Menachem Begin invaded southern Lebanon to impress Jodie Foster.
Next!
You see, the great 0 is not just the TOTUS.
He’s the TOTUS for the whole wide world.
So listen, you teeming billions, and heed his words of truth and wisdom.
The great 0 has spoken.
we are NO LONGER the leader of the free world, obama is a disgrace to EVERYTHING our great country has stood for
Ummm YAA, I gonna have to disagree with ya there.
BARF ALERT and BS meter, please!
Does Obama really think that people are going to believe that he inspired the Iranian protests?
I mean, hello? Iran’s been under tyranny for 30 years now! As the article said, the Iranian people are not going to just now decide that they are being ruled by tyrants!
He's been changing the course of history since the beginning of time.
That's what gods do.
Is there anyone in DC or the media who IS NOT smoking crack?
I wonder if he'll be as anxious to claim responsibility when he inspires American riots, as logic would indicate are certain to come.
Neda DIED and Obamessiah went out for Ice Cream! Then he invited her killers, with blood dripping from their hands to JOIN HIM for barbeque at the White House on July 4th! Obomination to the freedom seekers in Iran:
"It is all about ME, fend for yourselves and drop dead!"
Some of the koolaid drinking circle jerkers over at DU have been saying this for days. *shaking head*
White House: Cairo Speech Causes Sun to Rise (Countless Sunrises Created or Saved)
Wait a minute -
he’s been saying since this began that he didn’t want to meddle in Iran’s affairs.
Now he’s saying he in fact did so in a major way via the Cairo speech?
Geezus this guy’s whacked. Not only did the Cairo speech not have a thing to do w/ this uprising except maybe to make it less likely, 0 is so reaching to try to make people think he knows what’s going on ... and can effect change wrt world events.
honestly, he’s like an 8th grade boy caught in a lie about which girl he likes.
i’m just flabbergasted.
man oh man, he’s a piece of work.
What will happen if the rebellion gets quashed? What will Dumbo say now? That he was right all along? He is walking a very precipitous line in managing the perception. In either case, this is a lose-lose proposition for the WH.
In other words...nuanced meddling of the micro-managing marxist?
HOORAY Ed Morrissey!
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