Iran is no Soviet Union, but Obama is playing this one the way it should be played. There are consequences to words and actions, and, as you highlight here, when modern presidents are more inflammatory in their rhetoric toward governments they don't like, the consequences of their tone creates repercussions that are often opposed to what they say they desire.

Iran is no Soviet Union, but Obama is playing this one the way it should be played. There are consequences to words and actions, and, as you highlight here, when modern presidents are more inflammatory in their rhetoric toward governments they don't like, the consequences of their tone creates repercussions that are often opposed to what they say they desire.

I will give Reagan credit for this: His escalation of the arms race was a huge gamble, but it succeeded in bankrupting the Soviets when piled atop the expense of their Afghan occupation. (Never mind that it nearly bankrupted us as well…a situation that Bush 41 would pay for when he had to raise taxes.) By the time Reagan spoke in Berlin in June '87, Gorbachev was already well on the way to opening up Soviet society, and the fractures in the Soviet economy were already apparent. It was a stirring speech, of course — but it's one that would have been laughed at had Reagan made it in the early years of his tenure, before the Soviets' misadventure in Afghanistan had driven the government toward ruin.

It's striking how different that situation was from Obama's. Reagan addressed a Soviet leader who had already done much we were happy with, and encouraged him to do more; just this morning, Khamenei made it clear that no such unclenching of the totalitarian fist is likely in Iran–and, despite Obama's relative silence, blamed American meddling for the protests anyway. Obama's path forward from this moment is a lot trickier than Reagan's was then.

And if he had intervened, the left would have criticized him for jumping into a situation that he had no busines of being involved with.

“But, surprise surprise, it’s not nearly good enough for conservative hawks, who lately seem overcome with echoes of “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” as though it’s the bravest and most erudite phrase ever uttered.”

Maybe not the bravest thing ever said, but, isn't that what eventually happened, in no small part from the policies of Ronald Reagan?

The recount, such as it was, was the fox in the hen house being asked to find in favor of the chickens. It just wasn't ever going to happen. Anyone who thought it would was either drunk with the spirit of democracy or painfully naive. That's not to say it wasn't important because it certainly was. I suspect that had this election been recounted on the up and up (provided the ballots weren't magically whisked away to happy hunting ground) it would have been a Mousavi landslide. I know Iranians here in New Jersey and they were absolutely positive that their home community was ringing the bell for him alone. But now they have a taste of the real flavor going on, that their “elections” have truly been a dog & pony show staged by clerics to ameliorate the masses, and whatever is going to happen now is in their hands.

Obama shooting the verbal moose does nothing in either case. If things go well on the ground in Tehran, the people have already set their sights on better foreign relations. It is, in fact, a driving goal for them. If, on the other hand, Ahmedinejad goes all Kent State on the protesters while Obama stirs them to action, he can now turn the tables and say that the influence of The Great Satan was the real agent of bloodshed.

You're dead on target. Loose lips sink ships.