Cambridge scholar James Rogers actually presents a fairly well reasoned notion of what the EU’s outward projection of influence could be... if you assume that all Indians leaders for the next century willfully decide to not act in their self-interest, and assume that the Chinese are a nation of deferential, unarmed Coolees.
That is, assuming that the population will get out of bed for it, be willing to bleed for it, and actually have a doctrine that involve individual human freedom.
I argue that the time has come for a new geography of European power, which should be based around a sophisticated ‘forward presence’ that emphasises the preventative dimension of military power. As I point out, this would allow the European Union and its Member States to overcome the sporadic and reactive approach they have taken to security since the foundation of the European Security and Defence Policy in the late 1990s. It will also provision them with the means to uphold their interests and values in an uncertain world over the coming decades.
I mean, could they think of something that DOESN’T involve trying to convince poor people to deny themselves of affordable energy, or that doesn’t promote welfare dependency and crony socialism?
The other flaw in the theory, is that short of others ‘granting them’ the influence they seek, they will do nothing to command or deserve it.
Behind the Façades in France: What expats and the mainstream media (French and American alike) fail to notice (or fail to tell you) about French attitudes, principles, values, and official positions…
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Today Europe, Tomorrow the “Grand Area”
Syria Defended for Standing Up to Israel While Egypt is Excoriated for the "Cynical" and "Humiliating" Aligning of Its Foreign Policy on the West
In other words, it turns out once more — sigh — to be all the fault of the Jews: In Le Monde, Bertrand Badie puts the root cause for the uprisings in the Arab countries — or for the lack thereof — on the individual countries' relationship to "the most radical governments" in Israel.
The professor in politics defends Syria's régime for "preserving national unity" by using a "coherent" foreign policy that has given rise to "very little opposition", that is,
by the Assads' wisdom in standing up to the Israelis. This he couples with deploring Cairo's Mubarak for "humiliating" his country and for "taking enormous risks in dismantling Egypt's foreign policy and in aligning it in such a cynical fashion on [that of] the United States and even on [that of] the most radical governments in Israel." Bertrand Badie goes on to add that the Tahrir Square protests in Cairo were also about "the will of young Egyptians to escape from a humiliation in which their country's diplomacy had placed them." If one observes what is currently happening, Syria appears to be one of the countries in the Greater Middle EastFrench original:least affected by the upheavals we have characterized. Several factors must be taken taken into account. First of all, the Syrian regime has managed to preserve a minimum of national unity around a foreign policy that has given rise to very few challenges and which, unlike what has happened in Egypt, ensures the sustainability of a minimum of national cohesion.
One can see to what extent Mubarak and his system have taken enormous risks by dismantling [?!?!] Egypt's foreign policy and aligning it in such a cynical fashion on [that of] the United States,and even on [that of] the most radical governments of Israel. If the movement of Tahrir Square expressed no violence against Israel, the theme of solidarity with Palestine was present everywhere and was an essential marker of the desire of young Egyptians to exit a humiliation in which their country's diplomacy had placed them.
Furthermore, the régime of President Hafez al-Assad and his son Bashar present no symptoms of corruption as shocking as those that accompany the sagas of the Mubarak family or of the Ben Ali family. It seems to me that unlike most of its counterparts in the region, the Syrian regime is not in immediate danger.
Si l'on observe ce qui se produit actuellement, la Syrie apparaît comme l'un des pays les moins affectés au sein du Grand Moyen-Orient parLe Monde's ideological counterpart Stateside (the New York Times) displayed a similar attitude inside Steven Erlanger's article, Upheaval Jolts Israel and Raises New Worry:
On voit à quel point Moubarak et son système ont pris des risques énormes en démantelant la politique étrangère égyptienne et en l'alignant de façon aussi cynique sur les Etats-Unis,
En outre, le régime du président Hafez El-Assad et de son fils Bachar ne présente pas des symptômes de corruption aussi choquants que ceux qui accompagnent les sagas de la famille Moubarak ou de la famille Ben Ali. Il me semble donc que le régime syrien ne soit pas dans une situation de danger immédiat, comme la plupart de ses homologues de la région.
“The widespread indignity felt by Egyptians who see themselves as the jailers of Gaza on behalf of Israel and Washington will give way to a realistic policy by which Egyptians use their ties with Israel to push the latter to adopt a more law-abiding stance towards the Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese,” Rami G. Khouri, an analyst at the American University of Beirut, wrote for YaleGlobal online. “Egypt will keep peace with Israel, but raise the temperature on issues of profound national concern to Arabs.”
A Few Weeks Before His Trial, Newly-Ordained Father-in-Law Jacques Chirac Visits Paris's Salon de l'Agriculture
A couple of weeks prior to his trial for corruption during his days as mayor of Paris, Jacques Chirac made what Le Monde called a "sensational" visit to Paris's Salon de l'Agriculture. 
Last week, Chirac's daughter Claire got married to his secrétaire général during his days in the Élysée presidential palace, Frédéric Salat-Baroux…
Paris Match's Yannick Vely:
Ancien secrétaire général de l'Elysée sous Jacques Chirac, de 2005 à 2007, avocat de formation, Frédéric Salat-Baroux, âgé de 47 ans, est le deuxième mari de Claude Chirac.Cette dernière a eu la douleur de perdre son premier époux, le politologue Philippe Habert, en 1993, moins d’un an après l’avoir épousé. Elle a également eu un fils avec le judoka français Thierry Rey, Martin. Agé aujourd’hui de 14 ans, il a assisté à la cérémonie auprès de ses grands-parents. Jacques Chirac, dans un magnifique blazer bleu marine, paraissait d’ailleurs en grande forme. Claude Chirac avait été très importante dans les campagnes présidentielles de son père, en 1995 et 2002, en tant que conseillère en communication à l'Elysée entre 1995 et 2007.
Friday, February 25, 2011
This will Surely Go Unspoken
Expect the canned, ritual explanations to be spewed. Expect French people to ask why there are laws against assaulting Jews, which is merely an extension of having a special law for cause-associated interpersonal crimes closely associated with an ugly feature of French parochial attitudes and history. Expect all of the same old stuff. French police briefly detained British fashion designer John Galliano in Paris on Thursday evening for alleged assault and making anti-Semitic remarks, a police source told AFP on Friday.
The Marais contains part of the quartier Juif AKA Le Pletzl, home to the only really interesting baked goods left in the city, and the Rue des Rosiers, which is a delight to the eyes and palate that rubs the senses raw, letting you start over.
The detention in Paris' fashionable Marais district came after Dior's chief designer allegedly verbally accosted a couple sat on a cafe terrace.
The Marais is also Paris’ gay ghetto. Gays are prone to buying into the far end of leftist obsessions.
Galliano, you might recall, was behind the boho-meets-hobo chic line. Inspiration for the line was based on the appearance of the homeless, and went from design studio to catwalk without any form of social or moral awareness of the situation being evinced – not until people who choose to live their lives in a living human society where personal bombast and self-absorption isn’t a prerequisite – had pointed out the tastelessness of the idea.
He was also named by The Independent on Sunday to be one of the most influential gay people in Britain, even though his lives in Paris.
EUtopia: it’s a Loopy, Self-Referential Hell
Where women are reduced to becoming cows.LONDON (Reuters) – A specialist ice cream parlor plans to serve up breast milk ice cream and says people should think of it as an organic, free-range treat.
Really – get a life. Go outside. Get some fresh air and clear your head. Your funbags are there to nurse the children you think will get in the way of your lifestyle.
Europeans' Nocturnal Dreams about their Emissions
Europe needs to reduce its CO2 emissions by 25 percent over the next decade, rather than the currently agreed 20 percent, if the bloc is to meet a longer-term goal for 2050, a communication to be published by the European Commission next month is set to say.
Don’t you live it when committee-lizard-types quibble, argue, and try to distinguish themselves by making claims about things that they’ll actually never do?EU states' progress in meeting protocol targets dampened by emissions from goods produced abroad which have risen by 40%
[snip]
Europe contemplates raising carbon target to 30%
The huge extent to which Europe has exported its global warming pollution is evident from two sharply contrasting reports on how much greenhouse gas emissions have fallen or risen since world leaders signed up to huge reduction targets in the Kyoto protocol. Never mind that this “pollution” can neither be seen, smelled, or that getting it BELOW naturally occurring levels will “cool the earth”. Either way, they are either doubling down to keep their fake green rep on a continent where there hardy IS any environment left to protect to begin with.
Their “bravery” takes the form of penalizing producers, and punishing the general population with costlier energy. As if the Chinese care.
And Daddy Drinks Because you Cry!
Does some rich-world ruminant thinker's position on border enforcement somehow directly lead to participatory government in the north African states? That's a novel theory to try to prove!The head of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, on Wednesday made an implicit criticism of Italian policy. ‘This question of migration, or of illegal migration, or even of refugees, is sometimes used as a way of not supporting democracy and I do not agree with that,’ [Barroso] said after meeting a top UN human rights official in the EU capital.”
Otherwise, unleash the omnipotent opinion of perfection-making approved truth!The EU has refrained from imposing immediate sanctions against Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi but has called for a stop to the use of force on civilians. Thousands of Europeans are trying to leave the country, with Gaddafi losing control.
That will surely bring him to heel!
Refusing to Resign and Striking Back at Her Critics, Foreign Minister Alliot-Marie Is Still Rumored to Be Kicked Out of Sarkozy's Government Shortly
Michèle Alliot-Marie has published a rebuttal to the group of anonymous diplomats who authored of a stinging attack on the Sarkozy government's foreign policy, but although the foreign minister denies she is thinking of resigning, still rumors have it that Sarkozy will get rid of her by Monday… “Cela va bouger dans les quarante-huit heures”, confirme un proche du président. “L’Elysée ne peut pas être suspendu tous les mardis à la parution du Canard enchaîné“, poursuit ce proche.
Among the names of politicians who might replace her: defense minister Alain Juppé (who might in turn be replaced at defense by the Senate UMP group's helmer Gérard Longuet), agriculture minister Bruno Le Maire, former prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin…
In Mexico and Tunisia, the Results of French Diplomacy's Faux Pas Continue to Reverberate
report on the Mexican fiasco continuing — leading to a Mexican boycott of France's Année du Mexique, and the cancellation of one cultural event through France after the other 
(along with the attendant loss of investments, Mexican as well as French) — the newly-named ambassador to Tunisia is no more popular now than when he called for understanding, and for forgiving, Muammar Kaddhafi.
Boris Boillon promises to be polite in the future, writes Béatrice Gurrey in Le Monde, after being criticized in Tunisia, both in government circles and among common citizens, for having dissed Tunisian journalists (and walked out on them) and for having appeared in a Mexican boycott of France's Année du Mexique, 
and a swim-suit photo, all of which led one veteran diplomat, Charles Crettien, to pen a column in Le Monde calling the nomination of Boillon (and of anyone of his like) "shocking".
On the positive side, Boris Boillon — an Arab-speaking 41-year-old who served as ambassador in Baghdad — voiced support for George W Bush during the Iraq War! That, of course, makes his sins all the more unforgivable — among the Arabs as among the French…
Crowd of Arab Rulers Seeking Refuge in Saudi Arabia Seems to Be Growing
The Ben Ali Family in Saudi Arabia (by Plantu)• You will have to scoot over, we're expecting Qaddafi!
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Dude! I’m Sooooo Baked
Camel milk, camel steak, camel headcheese, camel florentine...
I dream of camels, all day and night. I think they’re, like, after me or something.
What About Those Greek Riots Which American Demonstrators Are Supposed to Emulate?
Regarding the clamoring, from the likes of Frances Fox Piven, for American demonstrators to take example on Greece's riots, along with a Democratic representative's wish for union supporters to "get out on the streets and get a little bloody", we have more exemplary behavior from the Greek protesters, which was a "mostly peaceful gathering", the New York Times thankfully informs us, except, of course, for such events as the Molotov cocktail which set one person (a motorcycle policeman) ablaze, burning his face…
Violent clashes between protesters and the police broke outin Athens on Wednesday writes Niki Kitsantonis, a New York Times correspondent who naturally had to make sure he referred
as the two main labor unions staged the first general strike of the year against the government’s austerity drive, paralyzing public services and disrupting transportation.Huh? No mention of the fear of the demonstrators, the hatred inhabiting their souls, their inability to think in new ways, and their irresponsible linking on to the dangerous downhill path of of populism? And how about, say, racism, or reactionary backwardness, thrown in for good measure? Oh, that's right, we forgot: They are not Americans, they are not Tea Partiers, and they are not people on the right (of whatever country)… They are leftists… So naturally they get a pass!
… the mostly peaceful gathering was shaken when groups of youthsbroke off from the main body and fought with the police outside Parliament and Athens University. Dozens of youths threw stones and firebombs at the police, who responded with tear gas.
Zougla, a news Web site, said two demonstrators were hurt and one police officer was burned when self-styled anarchists threw a firebomb at him, setting him alight.
A police spokesman said 25 people had been detained for questioning, including a man carrying a rucksack containing a bow and arrows, an ax and leaflets with anti-establishment slogans. The spokesman said three police officers had been wounded, including the one whose face was burned when he was hit by the firebomb. The number of injured demonstrators was unclear, the spokesman said.
Despite the skirmishes, the demonstration got “a good turnout,” said Vassilis Xenakis, a senior official at the civil servants’ union. “People are not scared to come out onto the streets, despite the risk of violence.”
Mr. Xenakis said he had seen police officers on motorcycles shouting at demonstrators to go home. “This is a message that people won’t go home,” he said. “They’re exasperated with the cuts to their income, and they can’t take it anymore.”
"Europe is powerless, Africa escapes us, the Mediterranean won’t talk to us, China has kept us down, and Washington is ignoring us!”
After weeks of diplomatic wavering on the tumult in the Arab world, President Nicolas Sarkozy is scrambling to signal to the world that France is back on track, defending core human values and treading with a sure foot in the changed Middle Eastwrites Katrinn Bennhold.
To be sure, Mr. Sarkozy is not alone among Western leaders to appear to falter in the fast-moving revolts convulsing the Arab world. But France, which has long claimed a special standing in that region and won respect there for opposing the war in Iraq in 2003, has seemed especially unnerved.All this has come against a background of simmering discontent among France’s professional diplomats — traditionally known for discretion and aplomb. On Tuesday, an anonymous complaint signed by several diplomats appeared in Le Monde, criticizing Mr. Sarkozy’s foreign policy as more show than substance.
…France, home to some five million Muslim inhabitants mostly of North African descent, prides itself on a special relationship with and understanding of the Arab world and its former colonial backyard in general.
Yet recent missteps have eroded much of that good will at home and abroad, diplomats and analysts warn. A first major sign came last summer, when Le Monde published a complaint by a former French ambassador to Africa about the Elysée Palace’s hijacking French diplomacy in Africa and cozy links between French elites and leaders in former colonies.
…The diplomats’ statement in Le Monde on Tuesday lamented France’s — and Europe’s — lack of influence the world over. “Contrary to the announcements trumpeted for the past three years, Europe is powerless, Africa escapes us, the Mediterranean won’t talk to us, China has kept us down and Washington is ignoring us!” the diplomats wrote.
Henri Guaino, one of Mr. Sarkozy’s most senior advisers, dismissed the laments as “cheap-shot judgments” ahead of the 2012 presidential elections.
…Embarrassed in Tunisia and to a lesser degree in Egypt, Mr. Sarkozy also took his time in condemning the violence in Libya. On Monday, six days into the uprising, when Human Rights Watch put the number of confirmed deaths at 233 — it has climbed since — Mr. Sarkozy made his first public statement, calling for an “immediate halt to the violence.”
Only after Colonel Qaddafi gave a televised address, vowing to fight the rebellion until his “last drop of blood,” did Mr. Sarkozy and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany call for sanctions.
It was not quite swift enough to avoid extensive reminders in the French media of the red carpet treatment Colonel Qaddafi received in 2007, after Tripoli released six foreign medics convicted of infecting Libyan children with the HIV virus in a deal Paris helped to broker.
During the Paris visit, several billion euros worth of industrial contracts were signed and Mr. Sarkozy justified his hospitality saying that he was “sending a signal to the Arab street.”
The Europeans and Their Ineffectual Diplomacy
(The EU's) Catherine Ashton to the Libyans• OK, OK, kids, let's calm down!
(A larger image of the Plantu cartoon
can be seen by clicking on the picture)
What the Democrats are telling us is that they would rather have no legislature than allow legislation that breaks the power of the unions
Why are Democrats ready to give everything in a last stand for public employees' unions? Because government employment is the socialist ideal in miniature.Robert Tracinski provides answers to the question, What does the Democratic Party stand for?
What does the Democratic Party stand for? You can find out by asking what they will take a stand for. In the recent protests against limitations on the power of government employees' unions, the Democrats have taken the strongest stand possible, short of outright insurrection. In Wisconsin, in Indiana, and potentially in Ohio, Democratic legislators have actually fled the state in order to deprive their state legislatures of the quorum necessary to vote.
This has led some commentators to describe this as a conflict between the Tea Party and the "Flee Party," but the issue is a little more serious than that. What the Democrats are telling us is that they would rather have no legislature than allow legislation that breaks the power of the unions.
Jack Wakeland has described the current attitude of the left as the rage of the liberal plantation owners, comparing it to the closed-minded irrationality of Southern politicians in the years leading up to the Civil War. Jim Geraghty captures something of the same idea when he describes these legislative walk-outs as "small-scale, temporary secessions."
They are not likely to win. Democratic legislators in Texas fled the state a few years back to prevent an unfavorable congressional redistricting—but they eventually returned and the legislation passed a few months later. Some have also pointed out that the Wisconsin Senate requires a smaller quorum for non-spending measures, so they could still pass the core of their union-busting legislation in the Democrats' absence.
That implies that this is not so much a rational calculation of political advantage on the part of the Democrats as it is an outpouring if existential rage. Curtailing the power of government employees' unions strikes to the very core of their existence, prompting them to give everything in a last stand. Why?
The threat to the Democratic Party is partly practical and partly ideological.
On the practical level, as Michael Barone explains below, the government employees' unions are a mechanism for siphoning taxpayer dollars into the campaigns of Democratic politicians. That's why Democratic legislators are going to bat for the unions. They are protecting their biggest campaign contributors. But that corrupt motive is not the only thing driving them.
On an ideological level, public sector employment represents the left's ideal: public employment is not oriented toward making a profit, there is no competition, generous health-care and retirement benefits are provided by the government, comfortable pay is mandated by legislative fiat, and the work rules are militantly egalitarian: pay, promotion, and job security are almost totally independent of actual job performance.
This is, of course, how the left thinks everyone should live and work. It is a socialist economy in miniature.
But of course, this prosperous set-up is possible only because the majority does not work like this. It survives only on the tax money looted from a much larger, productive private economy. Even then, the money is starting to run out. The socialist utopia of public employment is crossing the Thatcher Line—the point at which, as the Iron Lady used to say, you run out of other people's money.
This is why the left is pouring into the streets and temporarily seceding from state legislatures. For them, this is like a second fall of the Berlin Wall: the very viability of their ideal society is being threatened.
"Public Unions Force Taxpayers to Fund Democrats," Michael Barone, Washington Examiner, February 22
Everyone has priorities. During the past week Barack Obama has found no time to condemn the attacks that Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi has launched on the Libyan people.But he did find time to be interviewed by a Wisconsin television station and weigh in on the dispute between Republican Gov. Scott Walker and the state's public employee unions. Walker was staging "an assault on unions," he said, and added that "public employee unions make enormous contributions to our states and our citizens."
Enormous contributions, yes—to the Democratic Party and the Obama campaign. Unions, most of whose members are public employees, gave Democrats some $400 million in the 2008 election cycle. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the biggest public employee union, gave Democrats $90 million in the 2010 cycle.
Follow the money, Washington reporters like to say. The money in this case comes from taxpayers, present and future, who are the source of every penny of dues paid to public employee unions, who in turn spend much of that money on politics, almost all of it for Democrats. In effect, public employee unions are a mechanism by which every taxpayer is forced to fund the Democratic Party.
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One Reaction to Plantu's Cartoon on the Arab World's Decrepit Dictators Opines that Le Monde's Aging Apparatchik Ought to Include Himself Among Them
Among the Le Monde readers critical of Plantu is one (Maxime Malecki) writing that maybe the aging Le Monde "apparatchik" ought to add himself among those ancient, decrepit insiders in his cartoon related to the aging dictators of the Middle East…Pour une fois, le Plantu n'est pas mauvais... En même temps, depuis que je lis Le Monde - + de 20 ans - je l'ai toujours vu et très souvent en Une. Peut-être ferait-il bien de se caricaturer aussi dans ce tableau, non ?Comparing him to Kaddhafi, Maxime Malecki suggests it would be better if, like Libya's perennial strongman, Plantu simply upped and left…
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
In Wake of the Popular Revolts in the Arab World, France's Diplomacy Comes Under Fire for Timid Reactions
La France joue une partie serrée face aux soulèvements populaires arabes.Comment rebâtir une image après des années de complaisance à l'égard des pouvoirs en place ? Après la fuite de Ben Ali, Nicolas Sarkozy a théorisé un devoir de "réserve" auquel l'ancienne puissance coloniale serait astreinte. Les Etats-Unis ont paru occuper un créneau déserté par Paris. La place Tahrir au Caire a ensuite semblé vibrer aux messages envoyés par la Maison Blanche, interlocuteur sans égal, en relais et en moyens.
A front-page article by Natalie Nougayrède in Le Monde tells of the failures of French diplomacy during the popular revolts in the Arab world and the Middle East, some of them former French colonies. Needless to say, comparisons and contrasts with America's policies abound, Barack Obama or no Barack Obama, with Washington scoring high points for its (allegedly principled) "stand" on Egypt and the Middle East…
While Virginie Malingre points out that London's Foreign Office was far quicker to react, the French foul-up has led a group of diplomats, active as well as retired,
operating under the collective pseudonym of Marly, to charge that The Voice of France in the World Has Vanished. The Élysée immediately struck back, with Henri Guaino calling Marly's communiqué nothing more than "a political tract".
Map of the Popular Revolts in the Middle East and the Arab World
Le Monde has a map of the popular revolts in the Middle East and the ongoing status thereof…
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
And a Side of Hallal Angels of Horseback too...
Those sensitive, culturally aware Europeans have so much to teach us dull and dimwitted Americans.
Will this trigger a Kosher "day of rage"? That's a fine question but rather doubtful, my dear Faulein Ulla.
Using Christian Imagery to Defend Despot Kaddhafi: "In this life, we all have made mistakes and we all have the right to redemption"
"In the past", admitted Boris Boillon (as recently as November 2010 on Canal +'s Grand Journal), "Kaddhafi has been a terrorist."Kadhafi a été un terroriste, il ne l’est plus, il a fait son autocritique. (…) Dans sa vie on fait tous des erreurs et on a tous droit au rachat.
Having said that, the French diplomat — who has since been named France's ambassador to Tunisia (!) — comes with his caveat: but "he no longer is so, he has made his self-criticism", adding Christian forgiveness terms for good measure: "who can pretend to be a paragon of virtue and democracy?" Boillon ends his soliloquy with the following lesson in forgiveness: "In this life, we all have made mistakes and we all have the right to redemption." (Needless to say, such politically correct terms in the mouths of the left and of the all-knowing, wiser-than-thou élite are unheard of for non-PC leaders — despots or others — such as the terminally detestable Augusto Pinochet, George W Bush, etc…)Boillon défend Kadhafi (C+)
envoyé par LePostfr. - Regardez les dernières vidéos d'actu.
Monday, February 21, 2011
I would Plausit a "No"
Is Google Street View photojournalism?, asks the British Journal of Photography
"I found it a fascinating medium." indicated German artist and photographer Michael Wolf, who received an honorable mention in this year's World Press Photo juried competition for this work "A Series of Unfortunate Events", based on Google Street View.
What is the Arab equivalent of the phrase “peace in our time”?
The people flooding into the streets of Iran to seek regime change find no support from the U.S. governmentopines The Washington Times in its editorial, Obama’s Double standard for Iran.
The Apologizer-in-Chief has nothing to lose, except for one thing: the left's raison d'être, i.e., its fairy tale view of the world that there are no enemies on this planet, that all is based on misunderstandings which can be remedied with dialogue, and that if only the world would agree to come together, it would see that, indeed, there are no enemies — except, of course, for those cynical and mistrustful beings that are America's clueless combative conservatives.President Obama, who hectored Egypt‘s President Hosni Mubarak to transfer power “right now,” suddenly doesn’t want to get involved when it comes to the dictators running the Islamic republic.
The administration argues that taking a firm stand on regime change would hand Tehran a pretext for cracking down on pro-democracy protesters. It took the same approach during the 2009 protests, and the result was that Tehran’s thugs ruthlessly suppressed demonstrators and blamed the United States for instigating them. Iran‘s leaders will do the same again no matter what Mr. Obama says. The president has nothing to lose by standing up for freedom, especially because the Iranian regime really needs changing.
On Wednesday, Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper testified before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to revise his comment that the Muslim Brotherhood was “largely secular.” … Mr. Clapper … also maintains that the group is riven with factions and includes “a younger, more liberal wing who is more inclined to work through the secular political process.” This is in the great tradition of the hunt for the “moderate extremists,” which was a common liberal pastime during the Cold War that led to bad policy decisions every time.