Apparently, Iranians like freedom, too.  The stance of America has always been freedom = good, although you wouldn’t know that to hear the President these days.  To say that Obama’s early responses to the Iranian riots have been weak is an understatement.  How bad were they?  Obama himself had to strengthen up his words when the riots escalated over the weekend.  You know you’ve angered a Democratic President when his rhetoric gets amped up!

Makes you wonder how we’re going to handle North Korea.  Put that away, dictator!  Hey!  Put that down!  Don’t you dare load that missile.  Now you’re going to get it.  Hey!  Don’t fuel it.  We’re serious now.  You’re going to get a timeout.  Well, fuel it as long as you don’t launch – hey!

Listening to Chuck Todd, you’d think that rhetoric was all you needed to get things moving.

“[Obama's people are] frustrated that they’re not getting credit for what’s going on Iran,” said Todd on Sunday’s Meet the Press.  “They think that Cairo speech did help supporters of Moussavi sort of see light at the end of the tunnel…they want a little more credit here for sort of helping to spark the enthusiasm that you’re seeing…”

Really?  Obama’s Cairo speech is what inspired this?

They’re rioting against Ahmadinejad because Obama said this?

There will be many issues to discuss between our two countries, and we are willing to move forward without preconditions on the basis of mutual respect.

Are you kidding me?  The Iranians are rioting after Ahmadinejad won, so I’m assuming they don’t like him very much.  Obama’s Cairo speech essentially said that he’s willing to work with the guy.  If anything, I would assume that Iranians are revolting so that what Obama said won’t happen – in that way, maybe the Cairo speech did have a big impact.

There is another issue here.  Iran borders Iraq.  Iraq isn’t exactly a place where I’d build my winter home, but with greater access to Democracy, the entire area has probably seen its standards for government rise.

I don’t know a whole lot about Iran, but I’m guessing that these riots aren’t taking place because Obama went to Egypt and talked about how much Muslims contributed to Algebra.  I think it’s more likely that these riots take place because people get sick of an authoritarian government that keeps on provoking the West.