Roger Cohen received a lot of grief earlier this year for attempting to show other sides of Iran besides the one offered up by jingoists, and he deserves credit for having done that, but you have to wonder what he’s thinking when he says this:

The president has been right to tread carefully, given poisonous American-Iranian history, but has erred on the side of caution. He sounds like a man rehearsing prepared lines rather than the leader of the free world. A stronger condemnation of the violence and repression is needed, despite Khamenei’s warnings. Obama should also rectify his erroneous equating, from the U.S. national security perspective, of Ahmadinejad and Moussavi.

It is precisely “from the U.S. national security perspective” that the two of them are most alike. For the record, Obama did not equate them, but at most minimized the differences between them, which were exaggerated in the course of the campaign and in the eyes of Western observers. Whether or not Mousavi’s modestly different foreign policy views won him some votes (they probably did), those views are not why huge crowds have been protesting in the streets, nor on the whole is it why they wanted to defeat Ahmadinejad at the polls. Iranians probably are tired of the government throwing money at Hizbullah when their own economic woes are so severe, but it was probably the country’s economic and social conditions that boosted Ahmadinejad’s opponents rather than his international buffoonery.

Incidentally, has anyone else noticed how readily Obama supporters have forgotten their campaign-era arguments that it was Khamenei, not Ahmadinejad, who really mattered when it came to negotiations? Whenever someone mocked Obama about negotiating with Ahmadinejad, citing the latter’s belligerent rhetoric as a reason not to talk to him, his supporters used to point out, reasonably enough, that Ahmadinejad had limited power and no real control over the nuclear program anyway. Back then, Obama supporters were pointing to the structure of the deep state to explain why Ahmadinejad was not all that important. Now the structure of the deep state is to be ignored, and personalities are once more taking center stage. Why is it that so many of them have adopted the hawks’ preoccupation with the relatively powerless position of Iranian President? Obama seems not to have forgotten who is actually in charge of the Iranian government, which is why he said what he said, but many of his most earnest backers during our presidential election suddenly see great significance on matters of proliferation and foreign policy in exchanging one president for another.

In any case, Obama cannot rectify something he didn’t get wrong, and there is actually no benefit for Mousavi from Obama stressing how much more pliant and cooperative with the United States’ policies Mousavi is likely to be. Indeed, I cannot think of anything more clearly helpful to Mousavi and his supporters than to have the President affirm that they are no less supportive of Iranian ambitions and security than their opponents. This is not only true, but it may prove to be politically useful to Mousavi and his supporters as well. At the very least, it will do him no harm among Iranians. Practically the only people at the moment who care whether Mousavi is “better” on nuclear proliferation and foreign policy from the American perspective are, remarkably enough, Americans. Most of the people whose opinion of Mousavi is likely to change because of this are Americans.

As for stronger condemnation of the violence, why is it needed? What good would it actually do? Someone needs to make an argument why the protesters need such a condemnation to further their cause, and then this same person would need to explain why it is the business of the United States government to do that. If it is only American and Western audiences that are dissatisfied with Obama’s statements, perhaps that is as it should be. After all, whose need is being fulfilled by taking a “stronger” line? If it is merely an American need to have the President act as “leader of the free world,” even when doing so is the clumsy, ham-handed move that will harm both the protesters and U.S. interests, Obama should refuse to satisfy it. Obama has been cautious, but it is far from clear that he has erred in being so.