The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching. We mourn each and every innocent life that is lost. We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people. The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights. ~Barack Obama

Evidently, this is supposed to horrify those of us who have been arguing that Obama’s cautious, minimal response was the right one. I am having difficulty figuring out how exactly Obama is supposed to have offended me. In my first post on how the U.S. should respond to the election aftermath, I said:

Except for the most generic statements condemning violence and urging peaceful resolution to the crisis, Washington should say nothing, and I mean nothing.

The new statement doesn’t go very far beyond this, so I can’t say that I’m feeling all that outraged by Obama’s meddlesome ways. At least, not yet I’m not. The reason why I recommended that the response be as minimal as possible is that once a government begins addressing more specific grievances, people start to expect the government in question to do something about those grievances. Once they hear expressions of moral support, they may begin to look for something more tangible and concrete, and all of a sudden we’re on our way to trying to push through a new round of sanctions on the country, Congress begins passing legislation for funding and organizing anti-regime elements and before you know it the crisis has somehow become our solemn responsibility to resolve. The demand to speak out is how it always starts. The practitioners of moralistic cant Serious Foreign Policy Thinking nowadays like to claim that Americans have become too averse to their cant because of the disasters that have been wrought on account of such preening, and they are right about that much, but what is never clear is why we should let them get their feet in the door once again.

Obama has added some general remarks in support of free assembly and free speech, which, as Peggy Noonan pointed out the other day, are things that America obviously supports. How thick would someone have to be to think otherwise?

Much of the latest Obama statement is a rephrasing of things he said in an interview the day before or earlier in the week, if not simply lifted directly from his speech in Cairo and his Inaugural Address. In other words, anyone with a memory that extends back beyond 48 hours ago has already heard him say things exactly like this, and he has already said much of what was in the statement when talking about Iran earlier on. Mark Silva noted this similarity and asked a good question:

And, when one starts quoting one’s own talking points, what is one accomplishing more than talk?

Of course, that is the point some of us have been making all week. What good is such talk, unless it is supposed to be making us feel better? Joyner has referred to the new statement as “more tepid than many would like,” which is a good way to put it, because this seems to be an issue of what many in the West would like to hear rather than what would actually be wise or helpful to the protesters. The President’s critics seem to be self-congratulation addicts in need of a fix. They haven’t heard any ringing Americanist bromides in days, weeks even, and they are beginning to go into withdrawal. Why won’t the President take pity on them and engage in some good, old-fashioned irresponsible bluster? Perhaps he could utter some embarrassing teleological certainties about History, or declare his insights into the political preferences of God. That should help get them through the night. Imagine how galling it will be for the professional democratists, those whinging advocates of the “indispensable nation,” if the Iranians manage to find their own way towards some greater self-government without any real help from Washington. I don’t think it likely this will happen, but if it doesn’t it won’t be because the President failed to speak more loudly and aggressively in favor of the protesters.

Had Obama been out in front of the cameras every hour of every day for the last week declaring how outrageous and unacceptable the Iranian government’s behavior was and demanding that it stop, someone might reasonably expect him to do something about the outrageous and unacceptable behavior. Naturally, the same insipid critics who want Obama to “say more” would be demanding that he “do something” and not just talk. They have never explained what they want him to say, but simply that he must say more and say it more forcefully, which is convenient for them, since they can keep claiming that whatever he says never quite measures up. At the same time, every change in phrasing, no matter how minor and no matter how many times Obama has said something similar before, will be taken as a cue to call for Obama’s defenders to abandon him. It is imperative that at no point do his critics explain why his restraint is mistaken or why their irrational exuberance would be better. After all, what would we expect when these critics have no argument to make?

Just as one does not extend security guarantees one has no intention or ability of fulfilling, so as to avoid undermining the credibility of all security guarantees, the President is not going to box himsef into a corner rhetorically such that he will then be obliged to intervene directly through action when he knows that there is nothing that he can do that will positively affect the outcome of the crisis in Iran. There is almost nothing worse for a government to do than make empty threats that it knows ahead of time it cannot back up. Even when there is no formal guarantee, implicit promises of aid and support, such as those Saakashvili believed had been made to him by the United States, can lead to ruinous courses of action that harm the side in a conflict we find most sympathetic. Perhaps one of the few things worse than making empty threats is to use empty rhetoric that has real, negative consequences for the people the government is ostensibly trying to help. We should all be very clear that the latter is what the President’s critics are demanding that he do, and he is right to ignore them, as I wish all of us would.