Advice For Obama

Sane words from Mehdi Khalaji, as sought by Kevin Sullivan:

On June 4, in his keynote speech to the Muslim world in Cairo, Barak Obama admitted the U.S. government's involvement in the 1953 coup which led to the overthrow of “a democratically elected Iranian government." Since recent developments in Iran have been widely seen as a military coup under the cover of election, recognition of Ahmadinejad’s government would be interpreted by a majority of Iranian people as the U.S. support for another military coup in Iran.

Ali Alfoneh homes in on the Machiavellian ploy:

The question is why all the clumsiness?... The Islamic Republic may consider this sickening theater a demonstration of power, and the drama may reveal the new rules of the game in a regime changing very fast. Ahmadinejad is indeed a candidate of change and during his presidency the trend towards the militarization of Iran has grown faster. Once ruled by the clergy and guarded by the Revolutionary Guards, the Islamic Republic under Ahmadinejad is developing into a military regime, ruled and guarded by the Revolutionary Guards.

The brazenness of the theft may be the point.