For one who has been cautiously optimistic about some of Barack Obama’s important foreign policy decisions—for his refusal to withdraw from Iraq, for his stepping up our efforts in Afghanistan—I have to say I am dismayed by his policy toward Iran. Bloggers on the left as well as the right have been cheering on the Iranians demonstrating not only in protest of what they consider the rigged reelection of Mahmoud Ahmedinejad but against the fundamental features of the mullah regime.
But Obama has been hesitant to comment and has only expressed “deep concern” and then promised not to “meddle” in Iranian internal affairs. This toothless response is not only a contrast with Ronald Reagan’s disciplined expressions of anger at the Soviet-commanded crackdown on Solidarity in Poland in 1981 but also with the measured but unambiguous condemnation by George H. W. Bush of the Tienanmen Square massacre twenty years ago this month.
