What Will Obama’s Critics Say Now?

Joshua Rolnick — June 23, 2009 – 1:50 pm | Foreign Policy | Iran | Obama | Stop the Smears Comments (0) Add a comment

What can we expect from President Barack Obama’s critics, now that he has harshly condemned Iran’s violent crackdown on those protesting the election?

1. They will say he has not gone far enough. Why did he only “strongly condemn” the “unjust actions.” Why not “unhesitatingly denounce” or “full-throatedly repudiate” or “unequivocally damn.” And, come to think of it, why did he stop at “unjust actions”? Why not “evil barbarities”? And why refer to the country as “Iran”? Why not “The Persian Devil”?

Really, they will say. Does “appalled and outraged” even scratch the surface, when Obama could have said the United States is “seething with apocalyptic fury”?

2. They will say he did not speak up soon enough - ignoring the fact that people from former secretary of state Henry Kissinger to conservative columnist David Brooks to some of the world’s foremost Iranian experts have called Obama’s response exactly right, noting that aligning too strongly with the demonstrators will play right into the hands of the corrupt regime.

3. They will compare his response to former President Jimmy Carter’s response to the hostage crisis. (Really! They already are!) Because the taking of American hostages is the same thing as a disputed Iranian election.

4. They will say Obama’s response was not sincere. Because they were not in the room when the reporter asked him to elaborate on his condemnation of the murder of Neda Agha-Soltan, and the president said: “It’s heartbreaking. It’s heartbreaking.”

“This is what we’ve witnessed,” President Obama said. “We’ve seen the timeless dignity of tens of thousands of Iranians marching in silence. We’ve seen people of all ages risk everything to insist that their votes are counted and that their voices are heard.

“Above all, we’ve seen courageous women stand up to the brutality and threats, and we’ve experienced the searing image of a woman bleeding to death on the streets.”

“While this loss is raw and extraordinarily painful, we also know this: those who stand up for justice are always on the right side of history.”

But Obama’s critics will no doubt come out swinging. Because he did not say: “You’re with us or you’re against us.”

(Crossposted at www.neuroticdemocrat.com.)

 

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