Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the declared winner of the Iranian election last week, has told Obama to stop interfering with Iran’s affairs. According to Ahmadinejad:

We don’t expect much from British government and other European governments whose records and background are known for everybody and have no dignity but I wonder why Mr. Obama who has come with the slogan of change has fallen into the trap and taken the same route that Bush took and experienced its consequences.

After the jump is a video of Ahmadinejad asking Obama to stop “interfering” and express “regret.”

This comes after President Obama “strongly condemned” the violence that Iranian authorities were using against demonstrators in the streets.

Obama’s response?

Many have been critical of Obama’s neutrality saying that he needs to be stronger with his rhetoric and speak up against the injustice in Iran. Paul Wolfowitz’s Washington Post article, “‘No Comment’ Is Not an Option,” argued that Obama should not “dig in to a neutral posture” and that it was time to “change course.” His argument draws upon a case when Ronald Reagan chose a neutral position but later switched to take a stronger stance.

Wolfowitz argues that it was Reagan’s rhetoric that, in condemning Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos for rigging the election, caused Marcos to step down out of power and leave the country. The problem with comparing the Philippines to Iran, however, is that the U.S. does not have the same relationship with Iran as it did with the Philippines in 1986 and there for cannot assume the same influential role with Iran.

He also argues that George H. W. Bush’s rhetorical support for Yeltsin was the determining factor that dissolved the 1991 Soviet coup, (the actual reason was that the White House was sharing NSA information with Yeltsin that informed him which military officials were a liability).

Wolfowitz is not the only one who believes in the power of words. Many believe now that the rhetorical expression of virtue by the American President is enough to halt armies, tear down walls, and strike fear in our enemies. However, this is an incomplete and completely unrealistic revision of history. The world is too complex to reduce history to mere presidential rhetoric.

Furthermore, its a complete misunderstanding of human behavior, and state behavior for that matter. Tough talk does not bend our opponents to our will but only further exacerbates hostilities. Flexing your muscles doesn’t cause other to cower, rather they flex back. Were we expecting Ahmadinejad to bend simply because Obama said so? Instead, Ahmadinejad has fired back with a demand for an apology.  This is not the way to normalizing relations.

I am not suggesting that America should retain a permanently neutral posture, but we do have to show care for how we posture ourselves.  Our words and actions do have an impact on others, and its not always the impact that we anticipate.

Cross-posted from The Farm Report

I noticed it 30 years ago, when I began teaching. In my history class, students seemed to have little interest in the cast of characters until photography came along. Pictures changed the way we looked at history. We were never as interested in George Washington as were in Abraham Lincoln. It was because of those portraits of Lincoln, where we could look into his haunted eyes.

You can’t hide from pictures. The horrific video of a young woman, Neda Agha-Soltan, bleeding out on a Tehran street not only makes the political upheaval in Iran more tangible, it also shows the power of new media. We don’t turn to television, toward any immaculately dressed network news anchor, to see these images. We click on YouTube and get handheld cell phone video from a helpless bystander.

The photographer was a doctor, not a journalist. But the new media have changed the way we regard journalism and changed the very nature of the game. That journalists are bitching about this is somewhat hypocritical. Journalists have always bowed and scraped before the gods of competition. We believe that competitive journalism is better journalism. And as newspapers folded or were gobbled up by chains, we lamented at the cost of competition. If you wanted to create a competitor in a one-newspaper town, you were out of luck unless you have a couple billion for start-up cash.

Now all it takes is a kid with a keyboard or a bystander with a cell phone. The citizen journalist is all around us. It’s taken us back to the days of colonial journalism in America when a kid with a printing press could make a difference. So why should we – i.e., journalists – bitch about this?

Because we can. As Morley Safer said this week, “I would trust a citizen journalist as much as I would trust a citizen surgeon.” Agreed, big guy.

There are still a number of questions to be raised about how new media have democratized journalism. I go into detail about this in my new piece for The Florida Engineer. In the piece, I chat with Tom Wolfe about his concerns about how new media and all of our cool new time-saving toys are eating all of the precious hours from our too-brief lives on this planet.

But if we raise issues about any of this, we’re put down as Luddite assholes for even asking questions. (Odd … that would seem to make them the small-minded ones.)

Certainly, information posted on The New York Times website carries with it the credibility of that magnificent franchise. Maybe JoeBobsDailyNews.com can’t complete with that. (Don’t Google that. To the best of my knowledge, there is no JoeBobsDailyNews.com.)

The arrogance of now – whatever generation sits in the throne room – is that what we have achieved is it. But we need to see that we are always in transition. The over-used buzz phrase on campuses these days is that “change is the only constant.” Like all clichés, it suffers from truth.

Newspapers and news organizations are evolving. The public now has tools to rival a reporter’s toys. We’re coming together and something new is emerging. It’s fun to watch and it’s scary. We teeter on the precipice of trivialization. If you don’t believe me, ponder the media attention this week given to Perez Hilton’s face cut and resulting rant.

Yet on the other side of the precipice is a new world order of information sharing. It continues to make this — despite the media saturation of “Jon and Kate Plus 8” — a fascinating time to be a media watcher.

Sometimes, my friends in the newspaper business tell me they’re baffled that our journalism enrollments are through the roof at the University of Florida. We are more than 100 students above our enrollment cap in journalism. Despite bad news in the news business, students still  line up to petition to get into our program.

“Don’t they read newspapers?” my friends ask. “Don’t they realize what’s happening to our business?”

Of course they do. But I have some good news.  The best of today’s students still have the same convictions about public service and the people’s right to know as any newspaper journalist. They are committed to strong and accurate storytelling.

They’re just not so sure that these functions require newsprint.

I tell my friends that today’s journalism students have “faith in the function, if not the form” of journalism. No matter how it’s delivered, there will always be a demand for news and information.

Republican pundit David Brooks’ article in today’s New York Times discusses the latest events in Iran, as turmoil from their recent fraudulent election has spilled into the streets of Tehran. In his comments, Brooks observes that “on the big issue, the administration has it exactly right.”
This agreement — which is far from the position voiced by most Republicans — gives added support to Peter Meinke’s “Dear David” letter in this week’s Poet’s Notebook. Meinke’s basic claim is that long-time, and famous, Republican Brooks is slowly morphing into a Democrat, and it’s time that he made the actual leap — not in a self-serving Senator Arlen Specter sort of way, but because Brooks’ views coincide more and more with Barack Obama’s.

Experts and analysts were prepared for a close election between Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and challenger Mir-Hossein Mousavi. That didn’t happen; Ahmadinejad won by a landslide, 2 to 1.

Civil unrest has ensued. On Saturday, disappointed and suspicious demonstrators took to the streets. Those protests, supporters of Mousavi, were countered the next day with pro-Ahmadinejad rallies. Divide is growing and Khamenei is now calling for an investigation hoping to quell the unrest.

Here’s the video from that violence:

Again, the count says that Ahmadinejad received more votes, but many are suspicious; not only is the count itself not credible but neither is the speed at which the results came in. Beyond that, even if the results were valid the only thing Ahmadinejad has won is a destabilizing situation.

Mousavi didn’t win the election, but he was able to mobilize a large about of voters who had hopes of reform when it came to Iran’s economy and foreign relations. What his supporters have been able to do is pressure Khamenei to call for an investigation. However, if Mousavi supporters are questioning the transparency of the election, what are they to think of the validity of an investigation into the matter.

Many are now talking about the possibility of a revolution in Iran, though revolutions are incredibly hard to predict. If anything, such civil unrest undermines Iran’s elite. Mousavi was able to mobilize women and young voters, voters who don’s share much in common with Iran’s clerics. Such unrest from Iran’s progressives, televised all over the world, may pressure the regime to normalize foreign relations.

It’s unclear as to what happens next but one thing is for sure, the world is eager to watch how this plays out.

By Ben Luongo
PoHo contributor

Iran’s missile launch on Wednesday is not making President Barack Obama’s diplomatic efforts in the Middle East any easier. This demonstration, however, could be seen as more of a reason for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to embrace the two-state solution.

Netanyahu has made it clear that he sees Iran as a threat.  On Tuesday, after meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, he said:

“[Iran] is a great danger to all of us, to Israel specifically and to the moderate Arab regime, and to America.  Especially if this regime were to arm itself or arm terrorists with nuclear weapons, the consequences could be unimaginable.”

Here’s video of the Israeli leader in Washington, after the jump.

Netanyahu’s anxiety over Iran is understandable especially with President Ahmadinejad’s language towards Israel.  However, Netanyahu has made it clear that he is open to a military response against Iran if he sees it fit.  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was right when she warned that Iran’s nuclear ambitions could spark an arms race in the region, but Israel responding with force could turn a cold war hot.

First, it doesn’t look like this launch was an act of aggression.  Ahmadinejad is facing reelection and the success of his campaign depends on him demonstrating his ability to protect Iran from national security threats.  This launch is likely such a demonstration.

Second, of course two nations are going to be increasingly hostile as long as they are constantly threatening each other.  Netanyahu’s talk of resorting to military action against Iran doesn’t deter Iran’s nuclear ambitions; rather such threats are an incentive for hurrying its program.

Obama and Netanyahu’s discussions concerning the need for a two-state solution, however, should have more weight after Iran’s missile launch.  Iran exploits the hostility between Israel and the Palestinians for its own political agenda.  Ending the conflict between the Israel and the Palestinians could cripple Iran’s influence and make it easier to undermine Iran’s nuclear programs.

Reaching a two-state solution is tricky though.  Israel shouldn’t expect a two-state solution on solely its terms; It would most likely have to stop developing on the West Bank and Gaza.  Nonetheless, a two-state solution is necessary for security of both Israel and Palestine, as well as crippling the influence of Iran in the region.

Ben Luongo is a USF political science graduate student. He will be graduating this spring.

The New York Times on Tuesday reported on a letter President Barack Obama sent to Russian president Dmitri Medvedev supposedly offering to terminate the development of the missile defense system in Europe if Russia became a key player in halting Iran’s nuclear program. Later that day, Obama clarified the content of the letter saying that the NYT article didn’t “accurately characterize the letter.”

“What I said in the letter is what I have said publicly, which is that the missile defense that we have talked about deploying is directed toward, not Russia, but Iran, and what I said … was that, obviously, to the extent that we are lessening Iran’s commitment to nuclear weapons, then that reduces the pressure for, or the need for a missile defense system.”

The NYT article may have mischaracterized the letter if it led readers to believe that the White House was using the missile defense system in Europe as a bargaining chip. I don’t believe that was the intention of the article nor do I think that Obama plans on using the system as a bargaining chip. There is another concern though – that the topic of the defense system even came up at all in the letter. Here’s why…

I always thought that the missile defense system in Europe was an awful idea for the reason that it would only increase antagonism between the U.S and Russia. Originally a strategy of the Bush Administration, the missile defense system in the former Soviet satellite states of Poland and the Czech Republic was a strategy to counter threats from Iran. Russia disapproved under the logic that the system was a game changer but we ignored their concerns and as a result Putin evoked Cold War-like rhetoric and launched test missiles in a contentious tit-for-tat. U.S.-Russian relations have not been the same since.

Bringing it up casually, not as a bargaining chip, but as an added bonus for aiding the U.S. in halting Iran’s nuclear ambitions, can easily be misinterpreted by Medvedev as blackmail. Luckily it hasn’t, and Medvedev seems to welcome Obama’s overtures. However, the missile defense system and Iran’s nuclear ambitions must remain as two separate issues for another reason. If Russia pressures Iran with the expectation that the defense system would be terminated but fails to extinguish Iran’s nuclear ambitions, then U.S.-Russia relations may become plagued with the constant quarrel over whether the defense system stays or goes. In fact, Iran may decide to ignore Russian pressure for this reason if it sees this quarrelling as a likely outcome.

Former Defense Secretary, William Cohen, stated in an interview with CNN a similar point. He said that “Iran has been able to divide the UN Security Council” and as long as the UNSC remains divided “they [Iran] feel they can just continue to do what they are doing, keep testing, keep developing, and ultimately develop a nuclear weapon. Cohen also said concerning Iran’s nuclear ambitions that “if there is going to be a diplomatic solution then Russia has to be involved in it”.

The White House foreign policy has to be very careful juggling all of these relations. It may seem increasingly urgent to mend U.S.-Russian relations to address Iran, especially after Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, Mike Mullen, said that Iran now has the capability of making a nuclear bomb. However, U.S. foreign policy must remain, and I think it is, sober and level-headed. There is no evidence that suggests Iran’s nuclear ambitions are anything other than peaceful, and assuming too much about weapons has already bogged us down in one war. The first order of business should be, then, the White House opening up some form of discussion with Iran, but more importantly, gear that discussion towards realizing common moral backgrounds and reaching consensus.

As far as the missile defense system goes, the Obama administration is going to have to explore new and creative ideas of keeping the U.S.’s word to Poland and the Czech Republic, while at the same time minimizing Russian suspicions. Perhaps involving Russia in the designing of the system or even as a joint owner would solve this problem.

• Bush to leave behind a $482 billion deficit — and that doesn’t include “the full cost of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the potential $50 billion cost of another economic stimulus package, or the possibility of steeper losses in tax revenues if individual income or corporate profits decline.”
• You know the nation is in trouble when the Justice Department is guilty of repeatedly breaking the law.
• “Nuclear weapons are so 20th century.”
• McCain has part of his face removed; Obama’s hip hurts.
• Obama narrows the veep list … maybe.
• BlackLight’s not just for your Jimi Hendrix posters anymore.
• Amy Winehouse leaves the hospital, Kelsey Grammer checks in.
• Helpful tips for hallucinating the natural way.

• The Feds move to rescue Fannie and Freddie.
• The July 21st edition of The New Yorker is sure to turn some heads.
• Bombs away?
• In the wake of IndyMac biting it, you might be wondering how many banks will fail before the economy rebounds? You don’t want to know …
• McCain in the NY Times: “I think that we’ve proven that both parents are important in the success of a family so, no, I don’t believe in gay adoption.”
• Anheuser-Busch sells out to InBev for $52 billion. Bud Light suddenly tastes so much better now that it’s a product of Belgium.
• Down goes Miss USA!
• I go on vacation for one week and the baseball team goes completely to shit.
• Speaking of baseball: Home Run Derby tonight!

• “Crist. Oy. Brought in as the keynote speaker because he’s on the short list of potential McCain running mates, his performance Friday night truly did help his party. By showing unequivocally he would be a complete disaster for the GOP – the worst running mate since Dan Quayle.”
• The Dems cave on Iraq. Again.
• McCain’s plan for energy independence: Tap that coastline!
• Hi, I’m the nation of Iran and I’d like to close my account today.
• The AP seems ready to tell bloggers “hands off our text.” But first, the news organization will meet with a “blogging group” to make it look like they’re actually seeking council from those they wish to restrain.
• “George W. Bush is behind the Phish breakup.”
• Legendary: Tiger Woods wins his third U.S. Open. (By surviving a 19-hole playoff. On a bum knee. After not walking a golf course in months).
• R.I.P. Stan Winston.