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The Wall Street Journal thinks President Obama has been a lily-livered Carterite on the matter of the Iran protests. They would prefer that he denounced the Iranian regime's presumed theft of the election, and publicly side with the protesters.

This is nuts. I have been pleased by the rhetorical restraint Obama has shown in this matter. Obviously, this is not because I favor the Iranian regime; in fact, I hope the street protesters succeed in taking it down, and I am pretty sure Obama wouldn't be displeased by that result. It is impossible for me to understand how the Grand Vizier of the Great Satan publicly taking the side of the street protesters would help that cause. In fact, it would be a great gift to the regime, which could brand the Moussavi protesters as agents of America.

Daniel Larison talks sense about those who want Obama to be a crusader on this point. Excerpt:

In other words, he has so far acted the part of something very much like a responsible statesman. He has not acted like a glory-hounding demagogue who would rather appease his domestic audience with tough-sounding rhetoric that works to harm American interests throughout the region. ... Obama does seem to understand that foreign policy is a matter of state interests, and that Iran and America have some shared interests regardless of the shape of the government in Tehran. His foremost responsibility is to secure American interests, and reasonably enough this involves rapprochement with Iran, so you'd better believe that he is not going to put the cause of Mousavi ahead of that of the United States. If Nixon could go to China in the wake of the Cultural Revolution, which was a hundred times more brutal and appalling than anything we have seen in Iran over the last few days, Obama can and should persist in engaging Iran.

Obama's State Department contacting Twitter and asking them to delay scheduled maintenance on the system so the Iranian Twitter network could keep going during the post-election turmoil probably did more to forward the cause of reform in Iran than anything the president might have said.

The surprising landslide victory of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over his challengers--and some questions about the vote totals--has led to increasing unrest in Iran:

Mr. Moussavi made clear in statements on Saturday that he rejected the results and called on supporters and fellow clerics to fight them. But there were no reports of any public appearances by him through the day, leading to rumors that he might have been arrested.

In a statement posted on his campaign Web site, Mr. Moussavi said: "Today the people's will has been faced with an amazing incident of lies, hypocrisy and fraud. I call on my Iranian compatriots to remain calm and patient." [...]

Mr. Moussavi's defiance seemed to fuel street resistance by his supporters -- a coalition including women, young people, intellectuals and members of the moderate clerical establishment -- who had united in opposition to Mr. Ahmadinejad's erratic economic stewardship, confrontational foreign policy and crackdown on social freedoms.

"Death to the coup d'état!" chanted a surging crowd of several thousand protesters, many of whom wore Mr. Moussavi's signature bright green campaign colors, as they marched in central Tehran on Saturday afternoon. "Death to the dictator!"

Farther down the street, clusters of young men hurled rocks at a phalanx of riot police officers, and the police used their batons to beat back protesters. There were reports of demonstrations in other major Iranian cities as well.

The authorities closed universities in Tehran, blocked cellphone transmissions and access to Facebook and some other Web sites, and for a second day shut down text-messaging services.

As night settled in, the streets in northern Tehran that recently had been the scene of pre-election euphoria were lit by the flames of trash fires and blocked by tipped trash bins and at least one charred bus. Young men ran through the streets throwing paving stones at shop windows, and the police pursued them.

More:

As today's presidential election in Iran unfolds, turnout is high, and an office of the challenger has been attacked:

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- A campaign organizer for the main election challenger to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says about a dozen of the president's supporters attacked one of the opponent's campaign offices in Tehran with tear gas.

No one was injured. But it was the first report of violence in the presidential election Friday pitting pro-reform candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi against Ahmadinejad.

The high turnout has led to voting being extended:

TEHRAN, Iran - Voting hours were extended across Iran as citizens streamed to polling stations on Friday in a hotly contested election.

A senior ally of Mir Hossein Mousavi said the moderate candidate was on track to defeat hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad while an Ahmadinejad adviser dismissed the claim as "psychological war" and said the outcome was impossible to predict.

They were speaking a few hours before voting was officially due to end at 9:30 a.m. ET. The turnout was so heavy that voting was extended by three hours, the Interior Ministry said.

One of the most interesting articles I've read this week about the Iranian presidential election says that if Ahmadinejad is voted out of office, it may be due to the economy--and in particular, the way the economic situation has interfered with the ability of young people to marry:

These days, the phrase "marriage crisis" pops up in election debates, newspapers and blogs and is considered by government officials and ordinary Iranians alike to be one of the nation's most serious problems. It refers to the rising number of young people of marrying age who cannot afford to marry or are choosing not to tie the knot. By official estimates, there are currently 13 million to 15 million Iranians of marrying age; to keep that figure steady, Iran should be registering about 1.65 million marriages each year. The real figure is closer to half that.

Why does this matter? Because Iran's government cannot afford to further alienate the young people that comprise more than 35% of its population. The young are already seething over their government's radical stance in the world and its trashing of the economy, and their anger easily expresses itself politically. As they decide how to vote in Friday's presidential election, young people like Farhad and Mahnaz are likely to base their decision in part on who they think will address the problem closest to their heart.

More, below:

If you've been following the news about the continued demand for the release of photos of terrorist detainees, you already know that Congress was attempting to add a provision to a war funding bill that would keep the photos from being released; that after President Obama wrote a letter urging that this provision be dropped, it was; that the US Court of Appeals in New York has blocked the release for the time being; and that John McCain is calling on President Obama to issue an executive order declaring the photos to be classified material.

On one side of the argument is the ACLU, which continues to insist that the detainee photos must be released:

The American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the lawsuit calling for the release of the photographs, said it was "disappointed" by the order.

"The release of these photos is critical for public assessment of the Bush administration's policies with respect to prisoners," said ACLU lawyer Amrit Singh.

"Their disclosure would lay to rest the spurious claim that abuse was aberrational and not systemic," she said.

On the other side are those who fear the release of the photos could spark a backlash against Americans:

"What good are we to our soldiers if we can't protect them in a time like this?" asked Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina. "Every photo is a bullet for our enemy."

He and his allies, including Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, said Mr. Obama should take executive action to block the release of the photos by ordering them classified.

This is one of those arguments where both sides seem to have some merit. On the one hand, I think that we ought to know the extent to which inhumane treatment of prisoners was carried on and whether inhumane treatment and torture were more widespread than has been so far admitted.

On the other, since we still have troops in harm's way an open release of the photos might, indeed, create greater risk for the men and women who wear our country's uniform.

What do you think? Should the photos be released, or not?

We talked here the other day about President Obama' speech in Cairo; most of us saw it as a positive thing for the most part, and certainly the wish for peace in the Middle East is shared by everyone here.

But Andre Aciman, writing an op-ed in the New York Times, found an aspect of the speech less than stellar:

And yet, for all the president's talk of "a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world" and shared "principles of justice and progress," neither he nor anyone around him, and certainly no one in the audience, bothered to notice one small detail missing from the speech: he forgot me.

The president never said a word about me. Or, for that matter, about any of the other 800,000 or so Jews born in the Middle East who fled the Arab and Muslim world or who were summarily expelled for being Jewish in the 20th century. With all his references to the history of Islam and to its (questionable) "proud tradition of tolerance" of other faiths, Mr. Obama never said anything about those Jews whose ancestors had been living in Arab lands long before the advent of Islam but were its first victims once rampant nationalism swept over the Arab world.

Nor did he bother to mention that with this flight and expulsion, Jewish assets were -- let's call it by its proper name -- looted. Mr. Obama never mentioned the belongings I still own in Egypt and will never recover. My mother's house, my father's factory, our life in Egypt, our friends, our books, our cars, my bicycle. We are, each one of us, not just defined by the arrangement of protein molecules in our cells, but also by the things we call our own. Take away our things and something in us dies. Losing his wealth, his home, the life he had built, killed my father. He didn't die right away; it took four decades of exile to finish him off.

Mr. Obama had harsh things to say to the Arab world about its treatment of women. And he said much about America's debt to Islam. But he failed to remind the Egyptians in his audience that until 50 years ago a strong and vibrant Jewish community thrived in their midst. Or that many of Egypt's finest hospitals and other institutions were founded and financed by Jews. It is a shame that he did not remind the Egyptians in the audience of this, because, in most cases -- and especially among those younger than 50 -- their memory banks have been conveniently expunged of deadweight and guilt. They have no recollections of Jews.

I'm sympathetic to Aciman's story. But I don't think, given the audience President Obama was speaking to, that he could have brought up the subject of the Jewish expulsion from Arab countries in a way that wouldn't have provoked anger among those listening. That doesn't mean the issue should be ignored; but could the president really have made any reference to this situation, giving the location and circumstances surrounding his speech?

As we approach the D-Day 65th anniversary celebrations, I wonder whether anybody's still talking about this? The casus belli in the latest cross-Channel spat is the slight dealt by the French government to Queen Elizabeth II in failing to invite...

I just finished reading the text of the speech President Obama gave in Cairo today. Overall impression: a good speech, sensitively written with his audience in mind. Only negative impression: when Obama begins listing the specific issues, all of which...

Apartheid is only a bad memory, thank heaven, but now we see that South Africa has become pretty much like every other African country: a basket case, only not quite as bad as most....

I went to Dubai a few years ago, when it was high tide for the amazing Persian Gulf country. Now that the tide has gone out, the skull beneath the beautiful skin shows forth. It's a pretty frightening picture, as...

Oh, zose vacky Chermans: they're now marketing "Obama Fingers" -- fried chicken nuggets in homage to the US president. Not making this up! What will the Germans think of next......

I read the NYTimes every day, and I notice that Thomas Friedman has been a lot less soapboxy lately, since globalization and the global economy went to hell, and the flatness of his world has made it impossible to keep...

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Via Conventional Folly -- a blog you really should read often -- this 2002 blast from the past from John Derbyshire is pugnacious, arrogant, and mostly true (I think he's too dismissive of Arab culture in toto, but as far...

The other day, a colleague who is temperamentally optimistic stopped by my office to compliment me on my Samuel Huntington column. "Of course I think he was crazy," my friend said, "but he was important, so I'm glad you wrote...

During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama indicated some possible changes in America's policies toward Iran, should he be elected. Now that he has been, Iran would like to hear a few details: During his sermon minutes before, however, the imam,...

Freddie de Boer wants to know: If nothing else, I would like for those who continue to support the occupation of Iraq to confront this question: is our obligation to the Iraqis truly limitless? Is there no point at which...

Yesterday in Dallas we had a great event: the inaugural Dallas Festival of Ideas, in which the (wholly remarkable) Dallas Institute for Humanities and Culture brought in four nationally prominent speakers to join local authorities in talking about, well, ideas....

Mollie Hemingway at Get Religion has jumped Charlie Gibson's case -- with complete justification -- for mangling Sarah Palin's videotaped prayer request in which she discussed with her church members the need to pray that US troops were following God's...

Is it permissible to take pleasure and hope in the misfortune of others? Because I'm very pleased indeed at the news that the evil Kim Jong Il may have had a stroke. He truly is one of the most wicked...

Maximos: What strange times in which we dwell, that America has become a revolutionary and revisionist power, and Russia, a conservative, though often unpleasant, power. What's behind that thought? Read this fascinating post....

In Andrew Bacevich's forthcoming book "The Limits of Power," the conservative professor argues that George W. Bush's doctrines are no different from the "ideology of national security" that preceded it, and which is shared by both parties. It's an ideology...

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Daniel says that the Irish journo whose remarks about the hopelessness of Africa launched a hot thread here this past weekend is fairly wide of the mark in his harsh judgment. Excerpt: Myers' attitude towards Africa is no doubt influenced...

President Bush has taken steps to remove North Korea from the terror list, in the wake of that country's nuclear program declaration, issued today: President Bush, who once branded North Korea as part of an "axis of evil," welcomed the...

Andrew Sullivan thinks so: If there were ever a moment when the international community, led as it must be, by the U.S. and the U.N., should use force to prevent what now looks like mass murder, this is it. Three...

I was thinking what a foolish blunder it was for Bush to have pushed for NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia. Just how long do we think we can poke the Russian bear and get away with it? Does Bush...

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Not much to say here except that I hope the evil old bastard repents before he dies. And that's as charitable as I can manage. Viva Cuba libre! I pray that the US can move intelligently to help Cuba make...

As of today, when Pristina declared independence, on America's watch. I know, I know, the Serbs. I spent much of the 1990s cursing them for what they did to Sarajevo, and I don't take any of it back. Still, pardon...

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Matt Yglesias asks a good question: Why do our media portray Vladimir Putin as a bad guy for authoritarian government that's broadly popular with his people, but are soft on far more authoritarian governments in the Arab world that are...

International donors have pledged $7.4 billion towards building a Palestinian state. Meanwhile, Swiss bankers get ready for a windfall....

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I can't understand why people are so excited about the Annapolis Peace Conference. Mahmoud Abbas can't deliver a peace deal because the Palestinians can't even make peace with Palestinians. All the Care Bear Stares in the world can't dispel the...

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Is Benazir Bhutto the democratic middle way between Musharraf's dictatorship and Islamist theocracy? It would seem so. But her niece Fatima warns that Aunt Benazir is a cynical, corrupt politician, and implies that Bhutto was involved in the unsolved murder...

When I was in Turkey this summer, I was shocked -- really -- to discover how intensely anti-American the people were. I don't mean people were rude; they weren't. I mean reading the Turkish press, and talking to Turks, you...

It about kills me to disagree, as I rarely do, with Spengler's column, especially this point: News accounts link Turkey’s threat to invade northern Iraq with outrage over a resolution before the US Congress recognizing that Turkey committed genocide against...

I had a conversation today with Zeyno Baran, the Turkish-born scholar and analyst, in which I asked her what she forecast for the outcome of the diplomatic crisis between Turkey and the US over the Armenian genocide resolution. She said...

A Washington-based Egyptian journalist writes today that the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the mothership, has finally released its political platform. Guess what? They want an Islamist state with sharia law, and the denial of the right to run for the...

Philip Jenkins has a great piece up on The New Republic site explaining why homosexuality is such a big deal for African Christians, especially Nigeria's Anglicans. I knew that it was vitally important in Christianity's rivalry with Islam, as Jenkins...

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David Rieff says that "save Darfur" advocates are oversimplifying the actual conditions on the ground there. Think it's a good vs. evil story? It might have been at one time, but not anymore. Excerpt: If Save Darfur had said, "Look,...

Reihan leaps to praise of Rwandan president Paul Kagame, saying he may go down in history as an insufficiently heralded statesman because of praiseworthy views like this. I would have surely agreed with Reihan as late as yesterday morning ......

The Iranian president is on TV now speaking at Columbia. He is a loon, an utter loon, and a world-class demagogue. I'll post excerpts from the speech as soon as they become available. I would have preferred that Columbia not...

I guess this pretty much settles whether or not the brave Robert Mugabe critic really was canoodling a married woman. Sigh....

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Uh, wow: Islamic extremists embedded in the United States — posing as Hispanic nationals — are partnering with violent Mexican drug gangs to finance terror networks in the Middle East, according to a Drug Enforcement Administration report. "Since drug traffickers...

Afshin Molavi is one of the people you need to go to if you want to know something important about the Persian Gulf region. I met him at a conference in Dubai a couple of years ago, and was quite...