THE REAL REALISTS - AT 8:01 A.M. ET:  It must be tough when your campaign was based on the slogan, "Yes we can," and increasingly it appears that "no you can't."  President Obama made foreign policy look easy when he stared into the faces of starry-eyed kids during his election rounds.  Why, a little talking here, a little outreach there, a bit 'o foreign aid around that tree.  Hey, yes we can!

As The Politico reports, other people around the world actually have their own ideas:

The notion of an “Obama effect” sweeping the Middle East appeared to collide with the realities of the Islamic Republic of Iran Saturday, as the country’s confrontational, anti-American president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, celebrated a landslide victory in Friday’s election amid wide doubts about the honesty of the official vote count.

What Obama effect?  There isn't any, anywhere in the world, it seems. The notion of an Obama effect is based on the false image of "world opinion," some monolithic bloc that can be swayed by an American president.  As my great teacher, Hans Morgenthau, used to tell us, there's no such thing as world opinion.  There are only individual national opinions, and they are based, not on an attractive figure in Washington, but on the perceived national interests of the countries involved. 

Iran will do what believes is in its interest.  Right now, that means developing nuclear weapons.  Any "negotiations" will be limited by Iran's bottom line.  And Iran, clearly, is not the only problem:

Analysts across the political spectrum – including staunch supporters of Obama’s pledge to engage Iran in respectful negotiations – said that a second Ahmadinejad term seems to dash hopes of a warmer relationship with Tehran and complicate President Obama’s hopes of reaching a deal to stop Iran’s nuclear program by his own deadline of the end of this year. It comes as another target of Obama’s hopes for new engagement, North Korea, is defiantly threatening to test a nuclear weapon, in a dramatic weekend for two countries President George W. Bush placed in an “Axis of Evil.”

Gee, you don't feel that Bush was...right, do you?  Do you think a few people are thinking that in Washington, Manhattan, and Cambridge, Massachusetts?  Oh, don't ask, don't tell.

Illusions die hard.

June 15, 2009