So Obama dumps on Iran for etc etc - I dunno if I have anything to say, I think it's pretty much pointless commentary by him at this point - why get drawn in now? - maybe there's some tactical sagacity at work I'm missing - but what strikes me is how no one is mentioning China - as in they crushed with much more brutality a similar uprising on their streets a mere twenty years ago and now they're treated as a leading power that we go out of our way to make nice with etc etc - does anyone really believe that Iran gives a shit if Obama's 'outraged'? It's all quite silly.
"Why, if you think confrontation with Iran is inevitable and diplomacy a waste of time do you not then support coming out more strenuously in favour of encouraging the uprising and condemning the regime?"
"Because that only really works for you if the uprising fails, but not even then since the regime needs someone to blame the discontent on, needs a visible enemy of the people as means to keep the people in line and how is it to your advantage to lend credence to that lie? The illusion of supporting the uprising is that you actually want it to succeed but then you'd own that 'success' and owning it will compromise your ability to maneuver, limit your options, never mind the fact that whatever success the uprising manages may be decidedly not worth owning. The problem for Obama is that the whole idea of his supposed newness, an idea he has promoted both literally and by association, suggests that he support the uprising and champion their cause, not stand coldly back nurturing some no longer viable notion of eventually negotiating comity with a despised regime. Some make the mistake of arguing 'no no, promoting freedom was a Bush thing' but those people fail to understand that Bush only adopted the freedom agenda because the invasion of Iraq was going poorly and they didn't find any WMDs - 'freedom' was an ad hoc post facto rationalisation. But those who supported Obama with such adolescent zeal did so because they actually believed that he represented the emergence of a new world, a world where all their naive enthusiasms would be welcomed and all their fears assuaged."
