Just Relax - Obama's Dealing With Iran, Not Palin

One of the accusations thrown against Governor Palin during the 2008 campaign was that, as her running mate was elderly with a history of medical problems, she was too inexperienced to be one heartbeat away from the Oval Office. Similar questions were not raised about Senator Biden because Barack Obama was younger and fitter than John McCain and, even if the unthinkable happened, Biden's experience as a long term member and chairman of the Senate foreign Relations committee would enable him to deal with those 3.00am phone calls that Hillary Clinton defined as the litmus test for any President.

“Inexperienced” was a code word, of course, for being unable to understand and deal with issues of foreign policy. Unlike Senators Obama and Biden Governor Palin had rarely travelled outside the USA and, furthermore, her political life had been grounded entirely in a backwoods state far from the metropolitan centres of America’s cultural and intellectual elites. Obama, however, with his Ivy League education and cosmopolitan background had been mixing with those elites for years.

Way back at a townhall meeting in Clarion, Iowa in November 2007, Obama spelled out his qualifications for being able to handle foreign policy issues once he was in the White house

Democrat Barack Obama said Monday his childhood experience in Asia and his family in Kenya give him a greater foreign policy understanding than politicians who merely take junkets to other countries.

The first-term Illinois senator is frequently asked whether he has the foreign policy credentials to be president, and he faced the question again at a town hall meeting in Clarion.

‘‘I spent four years living overseas when I was a child living in Southeast Asia,’’ said Obama, who was born in Hawaii and spent four years in Indonesia. ‘‘My father is from Kenya. That’s where I got my name. He’s passed away now, but I still have family.’’

‘‘A lot of my knowledge about foreign affairs is not what I just studied in school. It’s actually having the knowledge of how ordinary people in these other countries live.’’

Obama contrasted that with tightly controlled congressional trips overseas.

‘‘You get picked up at the airport by a state convoy and a security detail. They drive you over to the ambassador’s house and you get lunch. Then you go take a tour of some factory or some school. Children do a native dance.’’

Obama said foreign policy decisions are rooted in an understanding of foreign cultures and he argued he has a much keener perception than his rivals.

‘‘It’s very hard for you to make good foreign policy decisions. Foreign policy is all about judgment,’’ said Obama. ‘‘It’s understanding what the world looks like from the outside.’’

So, for those of you who are a little worried about the way he has reacted to the aftermath of the Iranian election the answer is just be cool. His dad was from Kenya, he lived as a boy in Indonesia and, as a young man he briefly visited Pakistan. This depth of experience has enabled him to understand the significance of the events in Iran far more effectively than President Sarkozy of France.

On June 16th Sarkozy “branded Iran's election result a fraud” whereas Obama merely said he had “deep concerns.” Over the next few days while the rest of us were picking up disturbing images of government directed brutality via Twitter, Obama’s concerns gradually deepened, but he deftly avoided the rather unsophisticated robustness of Sarkozy and his responses have remained nuanced much to the relief of those who know better, like Michael J.W. Stickings.

The right has been all over Obama's measured response to the Iranian election -- seriously, what was he to do? push America's weight around with the situation still unclear, and with allegations of corruption and vote-rigging unproven, however credible, thereby likely driving the wedge between Washington and Tehran deeper at a time when the U.S. is seeking to open up diplomatic relations with Iran over its nuclear program? no, open meddling in internal Iranian affairs would hardly have gone over well in proud, nationalistic Iran -- but yesterday he came out firmly against the violent government crackdown on the opposition protesters and for an open investigation.

It wasn't all that much, but it was enough, and it was far more meaningful than the careful wording suggests. The president showed his, and America's, support for the protesters without being overly judgmental -- and thereby without threatening the fragile link that may yet allow him to promote America's interests diplomatically, if not to achieve positive results with respect to Iran's nuclear program and strategic position in the region.

Not that it's nearly enough for the right -- what would be enough for the right, short of neocon war? -- but, then, it's not like the right ever appreciates such nuance, such sensible maturity.

So there you have it – by not "going Sarkozy" Obama has made the Tehran regime think again about how it views the USA. You can just imagine Ahmadinejad ringing Khamenei and saying, “Hey, maybe they are not The Great Satan....why don’t we water down all that Caliphate stuff and invite Barack over to chat about centrifuges – and maybe he can give us some tips about cap and trade...”

Doesn’t that make you sleep sweeter at night knowing that Mr Nuance is in charge? And just to chill your blood a little let’s consider what might have been – McCain gets elected and then does a William Henry Harrison – catches a chill at the inauguration and dies thirty days later and the Iran affair has to be dealt with by the non-Ivy League former Governor of Alaska whose life experience has been as unsophisticated and uncosmopolitan as Rip Van Winkle.

Of course you can always guarantee that Thomas Sowell will blurt out something totally irrelevant:

The difference between being a spectator and being a participant, with responsibility for the consequences of what you say and do, is fundamental.

You can read books about crime or attend lectures by criminologists, but you have no real experience or expertise about crime unless you have been a criminal or a policeman.

Out of the four presidential and vice-presidential candidates this year, only Governor Palin has had to make executive decisions and live with the consequences

Ha – what did Sowell ever know...we can all live quite happily with the consequences of Obama’s executive decisions on Iran.

Of course we can...can't we?