The president is to be commended for giving HuffPo’s Nico Pitney the high sign before yesterday’s press conference so that Pitney would be primed to pass along this question from an Iranian dissident:

Under which conditions would you accept the election of Ahmadinejad? And if you do accept it without any significant changes in the conditions there, isn’t that a betrayal of—of what the demonstrators there are working to achieve?

As Paul Mirengoff points out, Pitney is also to be commended for hitting the president with that question:

What a terrific question—a query that not one in a thousand American journalists could be expected to match—and kudos to Pitney for selecting it. The question elegantly but pointedly (1) refutes the suggestion of Obama’s apologists that the president helps the protesters by remaining above the fray while (2) reminding Obama that he cannot really remain above the fray in any event because he must eventually accept the election of Ahmadinejad by dealing with him as planned or reject that fraudulently reached outcome by changing his course.

However, as Mirengoff continues, the president is not to be commended for his response to that question:

The president could only bob and weave. He responded that the U.S. did not have observers on the ground and therefore could not know whether the election was legitimate. But the U.S. knows that the candidates were pre-screened by the regime, making the election inherently illegitimate.

He responded further that it is up to the Iranian people, not the U.S., to view the election as legitimate or not. But a portion, and probably very large portion, of the Iranian people has already decided that the election is not legitimate; yet the “result” will stand and Ahmadinejad will serve another term. Thus, the ball is now in the Obama administration’s court to treat the election as legitimate, by dealing with Ahmadinejad even as he represses his own people, or to demur.

The question thus stands unanswered by Obama, though it answers itself: if Obama treats Ahmadinejad as the legitimate leader of Iran in the absence of significant changes in conditions there, that would indeed constitute a betrayal of what the demonstrators are working to achieve.

It doesn’t help that even as he finally offered a strong statement against the mullahs’ treatment of Iranian protestors, he still wanted to have them over for hot dogs (and negotiate with their terrorists).

This is the most unrealistic sort of political “realism” imaginable. Michael Rubin lays out the reasons why:

1. The command and control over any military nuclear program would be in the hands of the Office of the Supreme Leader and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the same groups who are now facing down the Iranian people. In other words, we share a common adversary with the Iranian people. We need to recognize that. The problem has never been the Iranian people—they indeed are far more moderate than their government. We should do nothing to antagonize them (which is why all the talk among some realists of outreach to the Mujahedin a-Khalq or playing an ethnic strategy is wrong, hamfisted, and counterproductive). We need to focus on how to counter and neutralize our common adversary.

2. Realism is about maximizing U.S. interests. Preserving an enemy regime is not realism. It is simply stupid. We should not be throwing a lifeline to the Islamic Republic, the fall of which would enable Iran to emerge as a force for moderation in the region, and allow the Iranian people to take their rightful place among nations.

On The Corner, Kathryn Jean Lopez posted a brief interview with Daniel Pipes, director of theMiddle East Forum and a Fellow of the Hoover Institution, on the current situation in Iran. As always, Pipes has some interesting things to say, including his statement that “the startling events in Iran in the week since the election have transformed [Mir Hossein] Mousavi from a hack Islamist politician into the unlikely symbol of dreams for a more secular and free Iran,” and his judgment that Ahmadinejad and the mullahs have been seriously weakened by the protests. (Bernard-Henri Lévy agrees.) Perhaps his most interesting comment, though, is his concluding observation:

I am taken aback by the nearly complete absence of Islam in the discussion. One hears about democracy, freedom, and justice, all of which do play a role, but the key issue is the Iranian population’s repudiation of the Islamist ideology that has dominated its lives for the past 30 years. Should the regime in Tehran be shaken by current challenges, this will likely have profound implications for the global career of radical Islam.

This dovetails with what I’ve heard from other sources (as do the comments by Jared Cohen which I noted last week) that disillusionment with Islam is widespread in Iran, especially among younger Iranians; I would imagine that if the regime were in fact to collapse, what would remain would still be a Muslim country, but a rather exhausted one (perhaps analogous to Europe after the end of the religious wars of the 17th century).

As regards the president’s tepid response to the protests in Iran, Michael Ledeen posted the following:

I’ve received what purports to be a statement from Mousavi’s Office in Tehran. Like everyone else covering the revolution, I get a lot of material that can’t be authenticated, and one must always take such material with a healthy dose of skepticism. That said, the person who sent this to me is undoubtedly in touch with the Mousavi people on the ground, that much is certain. His information has been proven reliable throughout this period. So while the following open letter carefully puts distance between the author(s) and Mousavi himself, I am quite sure that at a minimum it accurately reflects the state of mind of the Mousavi people.

The letter expresses strong displeasure with Barack Obama:

In the name of the Iranian people, we want you to know that when you recently made the statement “Achmadinejad or Mousavi? Two of a kind,” we consider this as a grave and deep insult, not just to Mr. Mousavi but especially against the judgment of the Iranian people, against our moral conviction and intelligence, especially those of the young generation that comprises a population of 31 million.

It is a specially grave insult for those who are now fighting for democracy and freedom, and an unwarranted gift and even praise for Mr. Khamenei, whose security forces are now killing peaceful Iranians in the streets of every major city in the country.

Your statement misled the people of the world. It was no doubt inspired by your hope for dialogue with this regime, but you cannot possibly believe in promises from a regime that lies to its own people and then kills them when they demand the promises be kept.

By such statements, your administration and you discourage the Iranian people, who believe and trust in the values of democracy and freedom. We are pleased to see that you have condemned the regime’s murderous violence, and we look forward to stronger support for the rightful struggle of the Iranian people against the actions of a regime that is your enemy as well as ours.

Ledeen’s post includes several other important things as well, including an excerpt from a speech Mousavi made yesterday. Meanwhile, the inimitable Rich Lowry posted on The Corner imagining how President Obama might have handled several other touchy international situations throughout history, including the Nazi air assault on London:

Any time a city is bombed for 57 straight nights, we take notice. That is something that interests us. We hope all national air forces involved in this dismaying conflict behave responsibly.

Fortunately, British PM Gordon Brown is taking up the slack; leaving the field free for him might be the nicest thing the Obama administration has done for the British government yet (not that there’s any competition for that particular honor).

“We are with others, including the whole of the European Union unanimously today, in condemning the use of violence, in condemning media suppression,” Brown said in Brussels after an EU summit.

“It is for Iran now to show the world that the elections have been fair . . . that the repression and the brutality that we have seen in these last few days is not something that is going to be repeated.

“We want Iran to be part of the international community and not to be isolated. But it is for Iran to prove . . . that they can respect these basic rights,” he said. . . .

During his rant, Ayatollah Khamenei called Britain “the most treacherous” enemy of Iran.

The Iranians have set their sights on Britain because they know they have a cream puff in the White House. Britain poses problems because it can push for EU trade sanctions against Iran.

Brown didn’t roll over when the ayatollah attacked. He hit back. On Friday, Brown’s Foreign Office summoned the Iranian ambassador and sharply critiqued Iranian attacks on Britain and the election process.

After demonstrating weakness, an embarrassed Obama administration slowly and reluctantly has ramped up its criticism of the tyrannical regime in Iran. . . .

Given the opportunity to simply support democracy, Obama decided to take a pass.

The unanswered question is why Barack Obama has been determined to coddle this crazed regime in Tehran.

Every cloud has a silver lining, though, and the one here is considerable; as Jeffrey Goldberg points out, fear of Iran has largely outweighed the hostility of Sunni Arab governments toward Israel, creating the possibility of a Sunni-Israeli alliance. At the very least, as I noted late last year, those Arab governments would dearly love for Israel to take down Iran and its proxies before Iran has the chance to come after them. How this will all play out, I don’t know (certainly, it isn’t as if we have a long history of things breaking right in modern southern/southwestern Asia), but at least there’s the possibility of good things happening.

Update: At least something convinced President Obama to take a stand against the Iranian government and its use of violence against its own people; I don’t know if it was the killings, the poll numbers, or what, but whatever the case, it’s welcome.