One thing you can say about President Barack Obama: he has discipline.
Any given move of his may be right or wrong, principled or expedient, upright or shameless or anywhere in between. But this president goes about his business according to his own calibration of what is required, and a thundering freight train at his flank will not throw him off message.
We have seen this in Obama's handling of the situation in Iran, which I'd say has been just about perfect. Unlike John McCain and other memory-challenged or morally-malleable loudmouths who called for an immediate and righteous presidential tongue-lashing of the Iranian regime, Obama understood from the beginning America's hypocritical history in that nation: we backed Iraq's Saddam Hussein and his chemical gassing against Iran when it suited us, and to avoid nationalization of Iranian oil we forcibly overthrew the democratically-elected Mossadegh government of Iran and helped install the Shah, ultimately leading to the backlash that brought in Iran's repressive current theocracy. Obama realized that American moral stock has limited value on the Iranian street, and that American military options in this situation are worth even less, and that leaping early into a fierce American sermon on democracy and human rights would 1.) be marginally inspiring at best to protesting Iranians who remember America's historic role there, and 2.) give the Iranian regime fuel to blame American instigation for some of the unrest and to brutally crack down on dissent.
This sober realization of Obama's matters. A lot. His restraint has now exposed the Iranian regime's brutal response as being unequivocally an atrocity of its own making, and has also allowed the world to see that the resistance is a wholly Iranian creation. Obama's control of his tongue has allowed the Iranian resistance to generate, in the eyes of the world, its own unquestionable legitimacy. And so now that the Iranian theocrats have blamed America for fanning the flames while the world sees clearly that no such thing occurred, the regime is left to globally account for itself, and Obama is now free to more credibly unleash outrage. Had the thoughtless and camera-hungry McCains of American politics had their way at the outset, neither Obama nor the Iranian revolt would have the clear international moral authority they now possess. Bear in mind, too, that with two wars going on at the moment -- Iraq and Afghanistan -- the United States has approximately zero military options in Iran. Moreover, whether we like it or not, Obama has calculated, quite clinically, that his only leverage in influencing the Ahmadinejad regime's nuclear actions lies in making no explicit threats to the legitimacy of the regime. This may yet prove to be a bargain with the devil from which Obama will need to extract himself. But to date, Obama's restrained tactics have succeeded in isolating and indicting the Iranian regime.
For a succinct and passionate explanation of how Obama is being smart about this while McCain and other detractors of Obama are not, see Joe Klein's June 22 remarks on CNN.
Discipline. Like it or not, Obama's got it.
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