Obama’s Test
Wednesday
Jun 24, 2009
Republican talking points seem ablaze after the weekend brought news of the Iranian government’s violent attempts to curb protests ten days after a presidential election left voters questioning the validity of their recently cast ballots. Today, Arizona senator and former presidential rival, John McCain, took advantage of an opportunity granted to him, ironically, by Barack Obama’s veep during last year’s campaign when Joe Biden told a group of donors, “It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy.”
“The world is looking,” Biden continued. “We’re about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Watch. We’re going to have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.”
Immediately, McCain fired back by saying that Biden’s statement irresponsibly invited such a test, yet he now seems poised to engage the president in a war of words that suggests an irrational desire to set the wheels in motion for Obama’s “test” to finally flourish. Yesterday, he publicly called into question the president’s response to the conflict in Iran. The president, while condemning the use of violence to quell the protests and expressing deep concern over reports that the election might be fixed, took a neutral stance on dealing with it by stating that the US will speak for the opposition’s fundamental rights to assembly and free speech, but stopping short of military intervention or further sanctions that would serve to enhance the Iranian government’s justification for the use of more violence.
Reading an AP article on protest crackdown before Congress, John McCain, whose knee-jerk reaction to last summer’s Russian invasion of the democratic country of Georgia would have had us launching an invasion the next day, grievingly focused attention on a young woman killed by Iranian authorities while protestors captured her murder on video. The woman, known to the world as “Neda,” was quickly designated a martyr by those sympathetic to the cause of Iranian protestors, but might as well be dubbed, “Neda the Plumber,” in McCain’s own circle. The Arizona senator shamelessly used the Iranian woman’s story as a backdrop to demonstrate his leadership in calling for the president to take a stronger stance against Iran.
However, Barack Obama seems poised, instead, to heed the advise of former president, George Herbert Walker Bush, who recently expressed caution against enflaming tensions with the Islamic republic over the protests. In 1991, Mr. Bush learned the consequences of encouraging homegrown resistance and subsequently failing to follow through on military aid, which led to the massacre of Iraqi revolutionaries. Regardless of influence, there is no denying that Obama continues to demonstrate an incredible capacity to keep cool under immense pressure. Only 154 days in office, no issue on his plate is more toxic than the nightmare of nuclear proliferation, and John McCain seems bitterly fixed on using the conflict as an opportunity to demonstrate a judgmental weakness on the part of the president. Of course, this comes from a man who displayed disturbing lapses in judgement throughout last year’s presidential campaign, including the choice to nominate a highly unqualified running mate and hasty decision to inject himself into congressional negotiations concerning the economic meltdown with no useful insight.
McCain’s motives may be wrong, but Joe Biden’s statement was right. The crisis in Iran is the international test that he anticipated for Barack Obama, and the president’s patience in dealing with it is paramount to his success. Our relationship with Iran has been on shaky ground for decades, with example after example of diplomatic missteps that gave Iranian authorities opportunities to propagate the politics of hatred and mistrust among their citizenry. Then, the Bush administration cut off diplomatic ties with the country entirely. Today, its leadership progresses towards the development of a nuclear weapon that threatens the prospect of peace everywhere and, as usual, Barack Obama must practice reasonable restraint under mounting pressure from the irritable and irrational, whether it’s coming from characters like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or John McCain.
Meanwhile, a new generation of highly motivated Iranian citizens, who matured under false pretenses of freedom, are expressing disapproval over an oppressive regime that they helped muster. It’s their fight, and increased rhetoric from the party that gave us George Bush and Dick Cheney will only lead us down the path towards political and diplomatic self-destruction. Put plainly, it’s ‘dem fightin’ words that John McCain, his party, and the extremist Iranian dictatorship expect from Barack Obama, and their flawed logic follow familiar tones that draw from mistakes made in the past. They are part of an old-school train of thought, which could neither anticipate or fully comprehend the idea that the Internet might play such a significant role in shifting the tides of change. The president knows better than to lead by their example, and understands that the way forward is by learning from past mistakes in order to fully embrace the promise of progress. By exercising reasonable restraint while aligning himself and the American people with the plight of those who stand their ground in the fight for freedom, he will pass the test with flying colors.
