Too cool

Richard Cohen writes:

Some of Obama’s critics have faulted him for not doing what Ronald Reagan (belatedly) did after the fraudulent election in the Philippines in 1986. After some dithering, Reagan virtually forced President Ferdinand Marcos into exile. How neat. How not a precedent for Iran. … Neither Germany nor France has America’s history in Iran. It was America that staged the 1953 coup that ousted Mohammed Mossadeq and returned the shah to the Peacock Throne. …

The President of Cool seems emotionally disconnected from events in Tehran — not unconcerned but not particularly upset, either.

This is a quality that will cost Obama plenty in coming years. He can acknowledge your pain, but he cannot feel it.

Iran, the first foreign policy “crisis,” alerts us to what to expect in the future: a tightly controlled message from the White House (anyone heard from Hillary Clinton lately?), a deliberate consideration of the options and no shoot-from-the-hip remarks.

This is how Obama ran his campaign. This is how he’ll run his foreign policy. As McCain should know, it works.

From somebody who was there to Cohen. Too bad Jimmy Carter didn’t get rid of the American lackey like Ronald Reagan did. God knows Jimmy had four years in which to do it. There’s a difference between too cool and too chicken.

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