The Redhunter

This is Russia invades Georgia redux. Obama flails for a few days and finally gets the rhetoric where it should have been from day one. If speaking forthrightly is right today, why was it not right four days ago? If speaking forthrightly would endanger allegedly greater interests, why speak today? If speaking forthrightly would enable the mullahs to make the United States the issue, why speak today?

The intellectual and moral incoherence of Obama's pronouncements is staggering. Today he decides to join Merkel, Sarko, et al in expressing concern for the brave Iranians fighting for their freedom with his customary swagger. We should not just sit back and say better late than never. We should see the dangers of a soulless president whose limited foreign policy instincts are all wrong, who refuses to discuss the consequences of murder with a Bush-like swagger and who's so stubborn and rigid he won't even rescind an invitation to a barbecue. It's a shame he didn't stick to reading the great Urdu poets.

Yup. I think the only reason Obama has changed his tune is that he felt pressured to do so.

Just to show what a weenie our president is, and that I am probably being way too generous in giving him one and a half cheers for his statement today, here is how he responded to questions in a press conference following the statement (h/t Mike's America)

QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President.

Your administration has said that the offer to talk to Iran's leaders remains open. Can you say if that's still so even with all the violence that has been committed by the government against the peaceful protesters?

And if it is, is there any red line that your administration won't cross where that offer will be shut off?

OBAMA: Well, obviously what's happened in Iran is profound, and we're still waiting to see how it plays itself out.

My position coming into this office has been that the United States has core national security interests in making sure that Iran doesn't possess a nuclear weapon and it stops exporting terrorism outside of its borders.

We have provided a path whereby Iran can reach out to the international community, engage, and become a part of international norms.

It is up to them to make a decision as to whether they choose that path. What we've been saying over the last several days, the last couple of weeks, obviously is not encouraging in terms of the path that this regime may choose to take.

And the fact that they are now in the midst of an extraordinary debate taking place in Iran, you know, may end up coloring how they respond to the international community as a whole.

We are going to monitor and see how this plays itself out before we make any judgments about how we proceed. But to reiterate, there is a path available to Iran in which their sovereignty is respected, their traditions, their culture, their faith is respected, but one in which they are part of a larger community that has responsibilities and operates according to norms and international rules that are universal.

We don't know how they're going to respond yet, and that's what we're waiting to see.

QUESTION: So should there be consequences for what's happened so far?

OBAMA: I think that the international community is, as I said before, bearing witness to what's taking place. And the Iranian government should understand that how they handle the dissent within their own country, generated indigenously, internally, from the Iranian people, will help shape the tone, not only for Iran's future, but also its relationship to other countries.

Back to the old equivocating and weasel words. The guy sounds like a regular Clinton in how he tries to parse his language. He's keeping his language so however things turn out he can say he was on their side.

Despite that the Iranian government has behaved abysmally, he still won't commit to any consequences, but blathers on about the "international community," as if there were such a thing. Stephen Hayes makes the point

The reason to talk about consequences is, at least in part, because it offers an opportunity to influence how this is going to play out. It may be the case that there are few potential consequences from the international community that could affect regime behavior. But if that's the case -- and given the regime's support for terror, its pursuit of a nuclear weapon, its theft of the election, and its violent suppression of the protests -- doesn't that make it more urgent for the international community to at least try to affect behavior and at least raise the possibility that there will come a time when the world refuses to recognize the current regime?

Obama talks like a professor, not as a world leader unafraid to take hard decisions and make hard judgments. He needs to change his tune, and fast.