It’s About Credibility
This meme surfaced in the comments thread of my primary post yesterday.
That meme hinges on this news, per the WSJ:
The Iranian government … accused the U.S. for the first time of interfering in the postelection dispute. Iran protested to the Swiss ambassador, who represents U.S. affairs in Iran because the two nations have no diplomatic ties. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said that President Barack Obama stands by his defense of principles such as the right of people to demonstrate.
Those who prefer McCain’s hard-line approach over Obama’s studied, cautious approach seized on this news and essentially argued: “See. Told ya. It doesn’t matter how careful we are in our official words, the Iranian government is accusing us of meddling.”
But the argument (made by those who prefer Obama’s approach) was never about preventing the accusation of meddling; it was about doing everything possible to avoid giving such an accusation credibility — especially with Iranians who are waffling, who are torn between the Ahmadinejad and Mousavi camps.
Much has been written about the ability of Iranians to access information via Twitter and other social media, despite their government’s best efforts to prevent such access. And with access, millions of Iranians, including the fence-sitters, can make their own judgments about whether or not the U.S. is meddling; whether or not the Iranian government’s accusation has any credibility. McCain’s approach risks boosting the Iranian government’s credibility; Obama’s undermines it. And Bill Kristol and Pat Buchanan, of all people, would appear to agree.
———–
UPDATE: For what it’s worth, Marc Ambinder and Andrew Sullivan make similar arguments.
4 Responses to “It’s About Credibility”
[...] connectivity and youth? I don’t know … the smart social mobile web to children in Kenya. It’s About Credibility – themoderatevoice.com 06/18/2009 This meme surfaced in the comments thread of my primary post [...]
Wise man say: “sometimes the best action is no action at all”..
Obama and Clinton (Sec of State) have been careful not to repeat the blunder the elder Bush made in Iraq with the Kurds and southern Shiites, encouraging them to revolt against Hussein, then failing to provide assistance (i.e., intervention, interference, meddling of the strongest and most overt kind) in the statements they have been making.
The situation has been made more complicated by their requesting Twitter not to shut down for maintenance, but to continue operating and providing people in Iran with one means of outside communications, which can be correctly interpreted as a backhanded, in-the-shadows (even gimmicky or cowardly) small form of interference and subversion in Iran, to the extent that it is a sign of support as well as facilitation of and even encouragement of continued demonstrations in the country.
Overall, we're pretty hands-off and the smooth talkers in Washington would say that with Twitter we just wanted communications, which were being manipulated otherwise by the Iranian government in Iran. The relatively small issue is to what extent our support and promotion of such communictions itself is meddling.
“Wise man say: 'sometimes the best action is no action at all'..”
Which is true as I have advised people about domestic affairs here in the States and Washington's too-excited and too-imperious ambitions. (The same advice goes for those demanding such quick action.)