Do the WikiLeaks revelations suggest a greater degree of tough-mindedness in the Obama administration than some of its critics give it credit for?

WikiLeaks’s avalanche of diplomatic revelations has been widely portrayed as evidence of waning American power, retreating U.S. influence, and a no-we-can’t foreign policy

writes John Vinocur.

A former C.I.A. case officer, getting in his licks, spoke of “damage to American credibility that is incalculable.”

But after a few weeks of getting accustomed to the torrent, there’s a case to be made that the disclosures’ most significant effect is removing a part of the discrepancy between what the United States really sees, hears and thinks of the world — now increasingly apparent via WikiLeaks — and the soft-edged presentation often made of the country’s ongoing confrontations by President Barack Obama’s White House.

… leaked cables report an Élysée Palace official telling an American diplomat — in contrast to President Nicolas Sarkozy’s public embrace of the Russians — that Russia seeks to “remodel” the post-Cold War map, let the West sink into the “Afghanistan swamp,” and do nothing to change the status quo in Iran.

… On balance, does all of this suggest a greater degree of tough-mindedness in the Obama administration than some of its critics give it credit for?