Head of Mossad says protests will fade, status quo will return, there'll be no revolution in Iran - I'm tending this way as well - only real result I see coming is an even more entrenched and recalcitrant authoritarianism - so, something of a China '89 without juicy tanks-rolling-over-students TV that CNN could replay a thousand times a day - there is though a restive, feeling their oats youth demographic in Tehran that could still hold some surprises here - but it was nice to see A--- run off to Russia in the middle of all this and pose smiling with Medvedev as if they were just on their way to suck down some Vodka and a few Muscovite slave girls. These guys sure know how to put the boot in.
Obama appears to want to stay out of the fray - which is the smart choice but as I've said there were no good choices for him - he's spent most of time in office so far touting idealism and his first chance comes around to give that idealism form and substance and he walks away from it - going so far as yesterday in CNBC interview to suggest there's no real difference between A--- and the other guy - wow - not that that isn't essentially true, but it goes against the gist of his rhetoric and flies entirely in the face of what his administration was contending but a few short weeks ago, namely, lets see how the Iranian elections pan out etc etc. Negotiating a suitable solution to the Iran nuke problem was going to be a near impossibility before this mess, now I think it is in fact impossible [although of course I always believed it was a no go] - reality is knocking on this man's door with ever increasing determination: at some point he's going to have to realise that looking hip and cool in interviews with a fawning press is just not going to be enough.
Kagan in Washington Post has different take: he believes Obama all along has wanted to play a 'realist' game with Iran, ie accept the legitimacy of present regime in order to facilitate negotiations and therefore has no interest in a 'reform movement' crashing the party and confusing matters; claims the 'hail Muslim, well met' video Obama made a while back was geared towards cementing this approach. I don't see that at all. I think the whole video thing was about wanting to convey to Iranians a willingness to engage believing that this would somehow obligate A--- to play nice - I believe it's targeted audience was the entire Mideast and must in that sense be linked to the Magic Muslim speech of a few weeks ago - you could even reasonably hold that the video aided the cause of the reformers in disputed election and therefore seeded these storm clouds - for a realist approach it's carrying a lot of unrealistic baggage - it only makes sense if you've already accepted that Iran will go nuclear, which indeed may be their position - in fact, on consideration, a lot of what they've done and said only makes sense it you assume they've already conceded nukes to Iran and are thinking of a post facto detente - I think there's no chance of this, or rather, the only way this has a chance is if the US essentially abandons Israel, forces Israel into unpleasant concessions - but even then it'd be only a hollow and short lived 'victory' - still, certainly is one way of lending sense to their actions...
