Another real good one from realclearpolitics.com

Obama Caught by Surprise on Iran
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By Jim Hoagland
June 21, 2009

WASHINGTON — The most serious challenge that Iran’s Islamic rulers have faced in their 30 years in power caught President Obama and many European leaders by surprise. Their intelligence agencies did little to prepare them for a national catharsis that now pits a combustible mixture of youthful, idealistic protesters and older political opportunists against Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

By threatening and then delivering repression blessed by his religious authority, Khamenei has turned an election dispute into a crisis of legitimacy for a regime that claims to be divinely inspired. Obama’s decision to stay out of the limelight in responding to the protests is paying off in the sense of keeping the focus on those who cheat and maim Iranians.

But the president and his advisers still have not adjusted policies and tactics being overtaken by events. This is clear both from the initial “caught in the headlights” reaction by Obama as he temporized — albeit with steely skill — and from accounts of diplomatic and other official sources here.

The administration’s own words suggest that Obama is trapped in a political version of the theory of relativity — that he moves along a predetermined course that prevents him from seeing the new situation exactly as it occurs. He clings to pre-election ideas and assumptions, acting above all to keep alive the chances for a nuclear deal with any government that sits in Tehran.

Focusing now on obtaining the highly improbable nuclear accord neglects the moral and historical dimensions of mass protest in authoritarian societies that are now vulnerable to new communications technology. Such moments release a moral energy in once-submissive populations that rulers must crush, accommodate or yield to. Whatever their ultimate choice — crushing is clearly the initial one — the ayatollahs will never be the same.

This is not to underestimate the difficulties Obama faces, as do John McCain and other critics who accuse the president of passively accepting what Iranian dissidents rightly call President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s “coup.”

But Obama should not have blurted out the (accurate) observation that challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi would probably not change Ahmadinejad’s foreign and nuclear policies. This is the kind of assessment that intelligence chiefs whisper to their bosses to explain that their missed call doesn’t really matter much.

Yes, Mousavi is a man of the Islamic establishment who has brutally put down dissent himself and something of an opportunist. But if he, and his clerical allies, were unexpectedly to overcome both Ahmadinejad’s coup and Khamenei’s crackdown, those who have been in the streets would hold the new government to different, higher standards of governance and engagement with the world. Mousavi might well disappoint them. But he would then have to deal with this newly politicized population.

Judged by what they have — and have not — said publicly, administration policymakers seem to underestimate the sense of empowerment that the demonstrations inevitably create for the protesters, especially among the young.

The experience of witnessing three very different citizens’ uprisings in the 1980s leads me to that expectation. I saw the “people power” movement sweep aside the Marcos regime in Manila, and Solidarity emerge from nothing to whittle away Polish communist rule and the Soviet empire. The euphoria of empowerment can also quickly turn to horror, as it did in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989.

But what remains — even from Tiananmen — are the scenes of heroism, and the acknowledgement of a population’s common humanity that rises from revolts for more dignity and freedom. To see a Chinese worker throw his bicycle — a necessary and relatively expensive possession in that day — beneath a military truck to block troops from attacking students is unforgettable. So is witnessing a parade by diplomats from the Chinese Foreign Ministry supporting the demonstrations.

And if I have not forgotten it, neither have the Chinese people. They were changed by these events, even if their cause was suppressed by their communist rulers — and then dishonored by the acquiescence of the first Bush administration in Deng Xiaoping’s actions.

Morality as a factor in foreign policy has taken a beating recently, due in part to George W. Bush’s sanctimonious exploitation of it. But ignoring its place altogether is also a mistake. Yes, it is not the American president’s prerogative to meddle in Iran’s protests. But neither should he prejudge or minimize the sacrifices that Iranian protesters choose to make in hopes of a better life.

Excellent expose on how Obama tries to govern, and how it isn’t working.

realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/06/22/dodge_facts_skip_details_govern_chicago-style_97103.html

June 22, 2009
Dodge Facts, Skip Details, Govern Chicago-Style
By Michael Barone
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We pundits like to analyze our presidents and so, as Barack Obama deals with difficult problems ranging from health care legislation to upheaval in Iran, let me offer my Three Rules of Obama.

First, Obama likes to execute long-range strategies but suffers from cognitive dissonance when new facts render them inappropriate. His 2008 campaign was a largely flawless execution of a smart strategy, but he was flummoxed momentarily when the Russians invaded Georgia and when John McCain picked Sarah Palin as his running mate. On domestic policy, he has been executing his long-range strategy of vastly expanding government, but may be encountering problems as voters show unease at huge increases in spending.

His long-range strategy of propitiating America’s enemies has been undercut by North Korea’s missile launches and demonstrations in Iran against the mullah regime’s apparent election fraud. His assumption that friendly words could melt the hearts of Kim Jong Il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have been refuted by events. He limits himself to expressing “deep concern” about the election in the almost surely vain hope of persuading the mullahs to abandon their drive for nuclear weapons, while he misses his chance to encourage the one result — regime change — that could protect us and our allies from Iranian attack.

Second, he does not seem to care much about the details of policy. He subcontracted the stimulus package to congressional appropriators, the cap-and-trade legislation to Reps. Henry Waxman and Edward Markey, and his health care program to Sen. Max Baucus. The result is incoherent public policy: indefensible pork barrel projects, a carbon emissions bill that doesn’t limit carbon emissions from politically connected industries and a health care program priced by the Congressional Budget Office at a fiscally unfeasible $1,600,000,000,000.

He quickly announced the closing of the prison at Guantanamo Bay and now finds his administration begging the likes of Palau and Bermuda to take a few detainees off its hands. His acceptance of Arabist insistence that all problems in the Middle East can be solved by getting an Israeli-Palestinian settlement has put us in the absurd position of pressuring Israel not to expand settlements by a single square meter but pledging not to “meddle” in Iran.

Third, he does business Chicago-style. His first political ambition was to be mayor of Chicago, the boss of all he surveyed; he has had to settle for the broader but less complete hegemony of the presidency.

From Chicago, he brings the assumption that there will always be a bounteous private sector that can be plundered endlessly on behalf of political favorites. Hence the government takeover of General Motors and Chrysler to bail out the United Auto Workers, the proposal for channeling money from the private nonprofits to the government by limiting the charitable deduction for high earners and the plan for expanding government (and public employee union rolls) by instituting universal pre-kindergarten.

Chicago-style, he has kept the Republicans out of serious policy negotiations but has allowed left-wing Democrats to veto a measure upholding his own decision not to release interrogation photos. While promising a politics of mutual respect, he peppers both his speeches and impromptu responses with jabs at his predecessor. Basking in the adulation of nearly the entire press corps, he whines about his coverage on Fox News. Those who stand in the way, like the Chrysler secured creditors, are told that their reputations will be destroyed. Those who expose wrongdoing by political allies, like the AmeriCorps inspector general, are fired.

Obama entered the presidency with what seemed like supreme self-confidence. He had, after all, advanced from the Illinois state Senate to the presidency of the United States in just four years — a steeper and more rapid ascent than any president since Woodrow Wilson. The success of his long-range campaign strategy seems to have made him confident that his long-range policy strategies would work, as well.

But transferring large segments of the American economy from the private to the public sector has proved to be tougher than winning Democratic primaries and caucuses. And Ahmadinejad and Kim Jong Il have proved to be harder to charm than American mainstream media.

It’s generally good for American presidents to have long-term strategies. But in setting public policy, it’s important to get the details right. And in guiding the nation in a dangerous world, it’s vital to adjust to face hard realities and adjust to unexpected events.

Os teleprompter is just not ready to broadcast yet. Extemporaious O is not.

By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, June 26, 2009

Iran today is a revolution in search of its Yeltsin. Without leadership, demonstrators will take to the street only so many times to face tear gas, batons and bullets. They need a leader like Boris Yeltsin: a former establishment figure with newly revolutionary credentials and legitimacy, who stands on a tank and gives the opposition direction by calling for the unthinkable — the abolition of the old political order.

Right now the Iranian revolution has no leader. As this is written, opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi has not appeared in public since June 18. And the Khamenei-Ahmadinejad regime has shown the requisite efficiency and ruthlessness at suppressing widespread unrest. Its brutality has been deployed intelligently. The key is to atomize the opposition. Start with the most sophisticated methods to block Internet and cellphone traffic, thanks to technology provided by Nokia Siemens Networks. Allow the more massive demonstrations to largely come and go — avoiding Tiananmen-style wholesale bloodshed — but disrupt the smaller ones with street-side violence and rooftop snipers, the perfect instrument of terror. Death instant and unseen, the kind that only the most reckless and courageous will brave.

Terror visited by invisible men. From rooftops by day. And by night, swift and sudden raids that pull students out of dormitories, the wounded out of hospitals, for beatings and disappearances.

For all our sentimental belief in the ultimate triumph of those on the “right side of history,” nothing is inevitable. This second Iranian revolution is on the defensive, even in retreat. To recover, it needs mass, because every dictatorship fears the moment when it gives the order to the gunmen to shoot at the crowd. If they do (Tiananmen), the regime survives; if they don’t (Romania’s Ceausescu), the dictators die like dogs. The opposition needs a general strike and major rallies in the major cities — but this time with someone who stands up and points out the road ahead.

Desperately seeking Yeltsin. Does this revolution have one? Or to put it another way, can Mousavi become Yeltsin?

President Obama’s worst misstep during the Iranian upheaval occurred early on when he publicly discounted the policy differences between Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Mousavi.

True, but that overlooked two extremely important points. First, while Mousavi himself was originally only a few inches to Ahmadinejad’s left on the political spectrum — being hand-picked by the ruling establishment precisely for his ideological reliability — Mousavi’s support was not restricted to those whose views matched his. He would have been the electoral choice of everyone to his left, a massive national constituency — liberals, liberalizers, secularists, monarchists, radicals and visceral opponents of the entire regime — that dwarfs those who shared his positions, as originally held.

Moreover, Mousavi’s positions have changed, just as he has. He is far different today from the Mousavi who began this electoral campaign.

Revolutions are dynamic, fluid. It is true that two months ago there was little difference between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi. But that day is long gone. Revolutions outrun their origins. And they transform their leaders. Mikhail Gorbachev and Yeltsin both began as orthodox party regulars. They subsequently evolved together into reformers. Then came the revolution. Gorbachev could not shake himself from the system. Yeltsin rose up and engineered its destruction.

In the 1980s, Mousavi was Ayatollah Khomeini’s prime minister, a brutal enforcer of orthodox Islamism. Twenty years later, he started out running for president advocating little more than cosmetic moderation. But then the revolutionary dynamic began: The millions who rallied to his cause — millions far to his left — began to radicalize him. The stolen election radicalized him even more. Finally, the bloody suppression of his followers led him to make statements just short of challenging the legitimacy of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the very foundations of the regime. The dynamic continues: The regime is preparing the basis for Mousavi’s indictment (for sedition), arrest, even possible execution. The prospect of hanging radicalizes further.

As Mousavi hovers between Gorbachev and Yeltsin, between reformer and revolutionary, between figurehead and leader, the revolution hangs in the balance. The regime may neutralize him by arrest or even murder. It may buy him off with offers of safety and a sinecure. He may well prefer to let this cup pass from his lips. But choose he must, and choose quickly. This is his moment, and it is fading rapidly. Unless Mousavi rises to it, or another rises in his place, Iran’s democratic uprising will end not as Russia 1991, but as China 1989.

washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/25/AR2009062503361.html?sub=AR

Today is going to be a busy day of doing some conversions, so I will be watching and reading. I wonder if the TV people or someone will tell O he is getting over exposed. However, I don’t think he really wants to negotiate through the good old person system. So it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

1. no

2. no answer

3. haha..

4. she had to have been carrying a notebook or papers tucked
in her right arm and why her elbow took the hit. She didn’t let go
of what she was carrying..plus she fell on a cement floor.

5. Bambi is doing nothing but following the script handed to him.
Hillary is the essence of diplomacy. She always handles a situation well as our
rep in the US. Her principles makes us proud to be who we are.

6. I think Hillary is tentative on Chavez. Like she said, we have to be cognizant
of their use of meetings with the US as a prime source of their propaganda.

7. Axelrod has got to go. The man is pure evil and a detriment to the country.

8. wbb… none of us have all the answers, the thing is, we never give up or give in-