President Obama said last week that he doesn’t want the U.S. to be seen as “meddling” in the recent Iranian presidential election.  In his view, vocally supporting the protesters is comparable to the CIA’s coup against Mossadeq in 1953.

That old bald eagle Zbigniew Brzezinski believes Obama has struck the “perfect tone”: Zbig thinks we should refrain from antagonizing the Iranian leadership and avoid a showdown.

Joe Klein’s thoughtful message for John McCain, who has been requesting that Obama take a tougher stance on Iran: “Be quiet.”  According to Klein, supporting the protesters is mere “self-indulgence.”

Joe Scarborough thinks it’s ridiculous that we know what’s best for women’s rights in Iran.  Peggy Noonan writes, “America so often gets Iran wrong…  So modesty and humility seem appropriate stances from which to observe and comment.”

What planet are these people from?  The would-be appeasers’ argument seems to be thus: We should not offer clear, unwavering, forceful encouragement to the Iranian protesters.  If we do, Iran’s leaders will accuse the U.S. of being behind the demonstrations—you know, the ones that no one in the West predicted, the ones that happened after the election results no one foresaw, the ones that few Western journalists are close enough to eyeball, let alone instigate.

My question for the ersatz pacifiers: “So what?”  Who believes the mullahs?  Nations of the free world don’t.  The protesters who spontaneously organized don’t.  The mullahs don’t—in fact, they were already making their misstatements long before our Equivocator-in-Chief decided to change his mind this week and raise an eyebrow over the carnage.  read more »