Either this WH wants to “meddle” or it doesn’t

Via the WaPo today we learn that the WH is trying to take credit for the uprising in Iran:

Obama’s approach to Iran, including his assertion that the unrest there represents a debate among Iranians unrelated to the United States, is an acknowledgment that a U.S. president’s words have a limited ability to alter foreign events in real time and could do more harm than good. But privately Obama advisers are crediting his Cairo speech for inspiring the protesters, especially the young ones, who are now posing the most direct challenge to the republic’s Islamic authority in its 30-year history.

One senior administration official with experience in the Middle East said, “There clearly is in the region a sense of new possibilities,” adding that “I was struck in the aftermath of the president’s speech that there was a connection. It was very sweeping in terms of its reach.”

The adviser said that “there is something particularly authentic about those who are carrying out these demonstrations,” citing the fact that some are carrying symbols of the 1979 Iranian revolution as they march for new elections, including photos of the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Ok – I’ll bite on this one. What the WH is “privately” saying is what liberals have been implying and outright stating for the last week and a half about the Iran election, and the uprising that followed, and that is “President Obama’s Cairo speech gave the Iranian people renewed hope of freedoms, and dialogue with the west” (to paraphrase). But as I’ve written recently in a couple of posts, reform-minded Iranians were hungry for change way before Barack Obama took the oath of office, and in fact before he even declared his candidacy for President. Sure, some might have been inspired by Obama’s Cairo speech – but it wasn’t the “catalyst” for the uprising. For the WH to suggest that shows an arrogance from this administration that truly knows no bounds.

I’ll also take it one step further: I have no doubt in my mind that Obama’s Cairo speech was designed to influence the Iranian elections. Hell – no President worth his salt would waste the opportunity to promote democracy and freedom on Middle Eastern soil just days before an election in a country that has for decades been hostile to the United States. You can read the speech and clearly see that the admnistration wrote that speech with the Iranian elections in mind.

So with that said, their belief that his Cairo speech was the catalyst of the uprising just goes to show how lame – and untrue -the excuses they’ve given over the last week for refusing to “meddle” in the Iranian election really were. If the WH wants to take credit for spurring the Iranian people on to protest the election results, then it is admitting that it “meddled” prior to the election. Yet it didn’t want to “meddle” post-election by condemning the violence that ensued from that uprising? Riiiight.

Will the lamestream media catch on to BarryO’s double-speak on “meddling”? Don’t bet on it.

More: Michelle Malkin liveblogged Obama’s earlier presser on Iran.

Related reading: Mousavi behind the attack on Marines in Lebanon?

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