Politico‘s Manu Raju reports that the GOP is “struggling to find its pitch on Iran.” Maybe – Max Boot suggests Ben Smith may have overstated any rift – but so is the left. Andrew Sullivan is demanding “no recognition of Ahmadinejad” as “the first and absolute requirement of all Western governments.” Sullivan’s writing has showed a clear drift over the last week away from the realists, who would recognize A’jad or any other thug that seizes power in Iran, and sparked a quick response from Stephen Walt, who asks, “How far is Sullivan willing to take this?” Moments later, Sullivan made clear that he wouldn’t take it so far as to drop his Jew-baiting: “[neocons] are about warfare against Israel’s perceived enemies…that is the prism through which you have to watch their every statement.” That should satisfy Walt for the time being, but this kind of squabbling is clear evidence that the left, too, is struggling to find the right response to the protests in Iran. I’d offer an alternate theory: Republicans are struggling to find ways to provide meaningful support to the opposition and to inflict real damage on the regime — to seize this very rare moment of instability in Iran — but aren’t sure how best to proceed (which is why Christian Whiton and Dan Senor offer them some ideas in the Journal today). In contrast, Democrats seem torn between their desire to support the president’s stability-focused approach on the one hand, and their desire to support the opposition on the other. It’s the Democrats who face a real fight over policy, though it’s tamped down by near-universal deference for the president, while Republican are really doing the only thing they can, which is to urge the president to show a little more back-bone.
