Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Having it Both Ways

Washington Post:
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.
Obama has justified his timid and tardy response to the violence in Iran as an attempt to avoid being seen as meddling. He has also complained that the Iranian mullahs have mistranslated his remarks in order to falsely claim that America incited the protests there. Yet here we have Obama's advisers boasting of his doing exactly that which he denies.

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