“No public outcry…? Guess the planet you were living on after 9/11 didn’t tune in earth news very well.

ed.

I think any nincompoop with half a brain could’ve seen that the Iranian leadership would try to pin this thing on the West, just as they did over the summer. Knowing that this would be coming, I don’t think that Obama’s delay (wow, a whole day!) should be surprising in the least, much denounced. Why give them any ammo at all? I understand that you question whether the Iranian rhetoric resonates with “the average Mohammed in the streets” - a fair question to ask, but not to answer. We just don’t know, just as we don’t know what the effect of that rhetoric is all over the world where, frankly, it’s aimed, and where it has more potential to incite or injure. Sure, it seems dumb to us, but maybe it doesn’t seem so dumb to some fellows in Yemen, or Pakistan, or China…. Fact of the matter is, there’s no need to be blustery and billowing at this point. Let them do their thing - looks like they’re doing pretty damn good so far. (and no, they don’t seem “lonely” - have you seen the videos of them flipping police cars and brandishing billy clubs? They would laugh at you if you told them that they needed us.)

Bravo.

I would just add that an enormous number of these most nervous nellies live in cities and states Osama bin Laden hasn’t even heard of. New Yorkers seem pretty calm, although they’ve been the main targets. Washingtonians seem equally relaxed. But Alabamans and South Dakotans run around with their hair on fire.

Of course NYC and DC are both Democrat strongholds.

I have never understood something about “Movement Conservatives”: Why are you all so full of fear? I lived in DC on 9-11, saw the Pentagon when it was still burning, took the train to New York and slipped the outer cordons to walk through the debris fields while the Trade Towers were still piles of smoking rubble. A little later, I saw the Anthrax Letters, and the DC Sniper. And although the latter pair of events made me cautious, and the former pair made me angry, none of it made me fearful. People all over the country flipping out and snagging their kids out of school was an understandable reflex (i was on the phone to my relatives as well), but the sense that bearded ragheads were going to be bombing the local Walmart or Corn Festival any minute now? WTF was that about?

Note I didn’t say you were cowardly, only that you were fearful. Acting in spite of your fears is often brave, but acting ineffectively or counter-productively in response to irrational and misplaced fear is just foolishness, neurosis.

Why should the President take time to go on national TV and re-assure you nervous nellies that you have nothing to worry about? Would you think better of him, or dissect his words and wait for, *look* for, events to prove him wrong? Why should this incompetent self-gelding schmuck rate a personal address from POTUS? Wouldn’t that just make this event *more* than what it is, a failed attack? It would make it an outright Event.

By the same token, the President having something to say publicly and directly about Iran’s protests is not going to help those protesters. It will probably actually hurt them, by reinforcing Iranian state propaganda that they are merely malcontents stirred up by the Great Satan.

Bravado is not bravery. Foolish certainty is not resolve. Get over yourselves. The question is not “Do you remember how you felt?” It’s “How long before you stopped feeling, and started *thinking* again?”

–Dave

I did not distort your position. And just so you don’t repeat that, let me quote you in your entirety:

1) As Rick has pointed out the American response to the brutality proffered by the Tehran regime has been belated and muted since the revolt erupted. This is definitely a silence that constitututes acceptance. We should have been forthright in our condemnation for the very beginning and we should have placed diplomatic pressure on the regime.

You repeat, but you do not support. Nor do you rebut. Explain how we have been silent when we have in fact condemned? Explain how that constitutes acceptance?

2) President Obama (and his supporters) promised us that his administration would jump-start relations with Iran, defuse the atomic crisis and bring stability to the region.

Oh? Show me where Obama said that.

One year has passed, they (the mullahs) are closer to the Bomb, Iran has made no perceptible movement toward peaceful resolution and we are, as noted, exactly where we were 1/20/09. During the Bush Administration it was made perfectly clear that it was not in anyone’s interest for Tehran to have a Bomb. Convincing them to abandon their nuclear ambitions was a tenet of Bush policy. President Obama said he would achieve it, so far he has made no progress. It is quite possible we are going backwards.

North Korea became a nuclear power during Mr. Bush’s administration. And Iran advanced its program. Even as Mr. Bush eliminated Iran’s biggest strategic opponent (Iraq.) So explain how any of this is Obama’s failure? Explain how Mr. Obama’s approach has been less successful than Mr. Bush’s?

This bears repetition:
Convincing them to abandon their nuclear ambitions was a tenet of Bush policy.
One of the tenets of my policy is that Angelina Jolie should climb in mmy bedroom window some night. MY policy is 100% as successful as Mr. Bush’s.

BTW Iran still uses the Great Satan card, and they have lost no credibility that I can see. In fact, since the majority of Shias in the world live in Iran it is hard to see how they would lose credit in the Shia “world.”

There is an open split within the ranks of the mullahs. Even within Iran itself Shia Islam has split.

I agree with Rick’s position. Nothing you have said provides a valid counter-argument.

Not so much. Rick’s position and yours pretty much came apart like wet crepe paper.

Your style of argument is tiresome and oft-repeated. You deliberately mis-state other people’s positions and throw in gratutitous ad homs that prove your arguments are mere prejudice and not reasoned positions. Your basic goal is to write something that shows (to yourself) your own superiority. Good Luck. This will be my last response to you.

1) As Rick has pointed out the American response to the brutality proffered by the Tehran regime has been belated and muted since the revolt erupted. This is definitely a silence that constitututes acceptance. We should have been forthright in our condemnation for the very beginning and we should have placed diplomatic pressure on the regime.

2) President Obama (and his supporters) promised us that his administration would jump-start relations with Iran, defuse the atomic crisis and bring stability to the region. One year has passed, they (the mullahs) are closer to the Bomb, Iran has made no perceptible movement toward peaceful resolution and we are, as noted, exactly where we were 1/20/09. During the Bush Administration it was made perfectly clear that it was not in anyone’s interest for Tehran to have a Bomb. Convincing them to abandon their nuclear ambitions was a tenet of Bush policy. President Obama said he would achieve it, so far he has made no progress. It is quite possible we are going backwards.

3) President Bush was quite successful in uniting the world against Iran during his term. He was not bellicose or threatening. In fact, most of what has been accomplished was accomplished in his eight years. Nothing has been added. Perhaps nothing has been lost, but of that I am not certain.

BTW Iran still uses the Great Satan card, and they have lost no credibility that I can see. In fact, since the majority of Shias in the world live in Iran it is hard to see how they would lose credit in the Shia “world.”

I agree with Rick’s position. Nothing you have said provides a valid counter-argument.

Soviets, Liberals, Saddam, Obama… the only thing that keeps the big tent together is fear of a common enemy.

I searched in vain for any part of your comment that was true.

In this case silence does constitute acceptance.

We haven’t been silent, we’ve kept a reasonable profile. So you’re objecting to the volume level. Do we need to turn the amps up to 11? Is that it? And then what? Khamenei surrenders?

The problem is that, as you note, we have gotten nothing from our one-year experiment in “engagement.”

What did you think we were trying to “get?” And what did we “get” by the previous 8 years of empty bellicosity? Can you give me a single, concrete example of anything Mr. Bush “got” from Iran? Anything? In fact, it was Iran that profited because we did them the immense favor of eliminating their chief strategic opponent.

Seriously, do you think we expected Khamenei to fold his tent because we extended a hand? What we expected is that we would unite the world against Iran by no longer playing the easily-caricatured bogeyman. (Done.) What we expected was to weaken the hand of the Tehran government in exporting revolution. (Done.)

I know right-wingers aren’t very bright on foreign policy (durrr . . . blow it up?) But the Iranian regime NEEDS us to be enemies. They PROFIT from American chest-thumping and threats. We DON’T need THEM to be enemies. So we profit from a weakening of hostilities and they lose.

More hostility = good for them. Less hostility = bad for them. Bad for them = good for us.

Right now the Iranian regime has lost legitimacy throughout Shia Islam and can no longer play the Great Satan card. Which is the kind of pay-off Mr. Bush was incapable of achieving. And all we had to do was stop the loud-mouthed posturing so beloved by goal-blind, bluster-loving critics.