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Politics : The Obama - Clinton Disaster -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TideGlider who wrote (14066)	6/22/2009 3:33:12 PM
From: pompsander	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 103300

how does he know they are Neocons lol There is no debate for trash. What does that mean? Why not use sentences? As for the core argument. The same crowd that plowed into Iraq on false assumptions are the ones spouting now about how the President needs to be more vocal. Subtley is never there strong suit. Want names: Krauthammer, Wolfewitz, Frum and Andy McCarthy, for four. Obama gets credit for nothing on the foreign stage, but there has been some notable progress, after all.. _________________________ OK, let me see if I've got this right. Since Barack Obama has taken the presidential oath of office we have witnessed: a) Hezbollah lose a shoo-in election in Lebanon, b) Pakistan begin serious efforts to control the Taliban and al Qaeda elements inside its borders, c) Netanyahu of Israel mumble support about a two state solution and rethink settlements and, d) A major awakening of the Iranian citizenry against the heavy-handedness of the mullahs. What hasn't changed? The simple-minded thuggery of the Right when it comes to foreign policy (and Grover Norquist, someone should gently remind him that it's 2009, not 1989). They have long preferred a modified Teddy Roosevelt approach. Speak loudly and wail away with the biggest stick you can find. I don't know if all this is the results of one speech in Cairo by the President but if it is I hope he gives a second, and soon," - Carl Owen, Politico.

To: TideGlider who wrote (14066)	6/22/2009 3:36:55 PM
From: pompsander	Respond to of 103300

Thomas E. Fiedler, Dean, Boston University College of Communication: A lesson as to the danger of hardening the Obama administration’s rhetoric against the embattled Iranian government can be found in the pro-democracy revolt in Hungary, which spanned a three-week period in the fall of 1956. Hungary at the time was governed -- controlled may be a better word -- by a hard-line Stalinist regime backed by the Soviet Union. But growing opposition to this regime and its harsh, repressive measures boiled over on Oct. 23 of that year when university students seized a radio station and began denouncing the regime. Attempts to arrest the students ignited a popular revolt, mobilized scores of anti-government militias and, within days, forced the communist government to yield power. But the flowering of democracy was not to be tolerated by the Soviet Union. On Nov. 10 Soviet troops invaded Hungary killing thousands of militia members and forcing nearly a quarter-million Hungarians to flee the country. Within days a puppet communist government had been installed, dissidents were imprisoned and tortured, and the uprising quelled. In the revolt’s aftermath, many Hungarian refugees reported that their quest for democracy had been enthusiastically encouraged by the US-run Radio Free Europe, whose broadcasts repeatedly hinted at US intervention on their behalf. When that support failed to materialize, these Hungarians bitterly accused the Eisenhower administration not only of breaking faith with those in the pro-democracy uprising, but of endangering many by encouraging them to take up arms against the Soviets, only to be crushed in return. I have seen no indication that the Obama administration has looked to the Hungarian revolution to provide an historic analog. But the president’s cautious response – taking care not to encourage confrontations with Iranian-government forces that could easily turn violent -- adheres to the lesson that was drawn from the Eisenhower administration’s approach to Hungary.

To: TideGlider who wrote (14066)	6/22/2009 3:37:52 PM
From: pompsander	Respond to of 103300

Joshua A. Tucker, Professor of Politics, NYU: Stay the Course, and Protect the Flow of Information Into and Out of Iran The president has a very fine line to walk here, because his administration (and many supporters on both sides of the aisle) have been absolutely correct that the Iranian authorities would like nothing better than to be able to paint this as a US plot. This sort of thing happened a lot during the Colored Revolutions, especially in Georgia and Ukraine, and given (1) the history of of US-Iranian relations and (2) the willingness that the Iranian regime has demonstrated to use force against its own citizens, the US continues to need to be very careful in this regard. So I think the best thing the president can do is essentially continue what he has been doing: offer general support for the citizens of Iran (including strong condemnation of the use of force against one's own citizens) without injecting the US government directly into the political struggle on the ground. What the president's critics have neglected is the fact that the protests gained strength precisely as Obama pursued his policy of not getting the United States overly involved in the protests. While his critics can complain that this shows that Obama was not doing all he could to help our natural allies, it may actually be the case that had the US done more originally, fewer people would have turned out to support the protests. It is important to remember (both now and in the future) that just because a citizen of a foreign country protests in favor of free and fair elections, it does not automatically mean that that person has either a positive view of the United States and/or a negative view of our enemies. Of course, a week and a half into the protests, it is becoming harder and harder for the Iranian regime to paint the protests as an American plot, which gives the president more room for lattitude now than he had at this time last week. One more concrete recommendation: the more the US government can do to continue the flow of information into and out of Iran, the better. One recent development in this regard has been the appearance of a number of reports from scholars (we have links to two of these at the Monkey Cage; CNN had another report up on its website yesterday) that are providing harder evidence of electoral fraud - making sure that these reports reach Iranian citizens could help to continue to encourage Iranians that going out onto the streets to protest the election results is a worthwhile endeavor. Similarly, the protestors have clearly drawn strength from the knowledge that their struggles are being broadcast to an international audience.