Numerous reports in the past week or so documented a split between Secretary State Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama with regards to how the administration should react to the Iranian street protestors following the apparent stolen presidential election in Iran.
Secretary Clinton advocated a tougher approach and it took a long time before Obama adopted Clinton's position, although he refused to give her a heads-up when he finally adopted her position. She believed after the killing of the young woman, Neda Agha-Soltan -- seen on a video which went around the world -- that it was time for the president to get tougher against Iran.
As an article in yesterday's "The Washington Times" said: "Mrs. Clinton had been advocating the stronger U.S. response, but the president resisted." It added that "Mrs. Clinton did not know (of Obama's adopting her position) until he uttered the words that he would choose that moment to make them public."
Likewise, on a morning talk show last Sunday, Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican from South Carolina said: "The president of the United States is supposed to lead the free world, not follow it. He's been timid and passive more than I would like."
Obama has been brought to his current position kicking and screaming by the likes of the Secretary of State and Senator Graham. Obama's timidity is because of a campaign promise in which he wanted to put distance between himself and the Bush administration on Iran. Obama thought he would be able to stop Iran's nuclear weapons program just by sweet-talking them out of it, or so he thought. He would open a dialogue with all these dictators of the world and they would come around to his side, or so he thought.
Iran has stepped up its nuclear weapons development program in the past few months. North Korea just today launched two short-range missiles and has threatened to launch an intercontinental missile on the Fourth of July in the direction of Hawaii. So much for the president's negotiations' skills.
As Iran's supreme leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and his puppet president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, continue to crack down on the demonstrators in the streets, and indeed killing them, the Obama administration continues to emulate a previous failed presidency, that of the Carter administration, whose policies toward Iran resulted in Jimmy Carter's humiliating defeat for reelection.
An interesting question in all of this is, will other major differences between Obama and his Secretary of State lead to her resignation in a year or two and even a challenge to him in the 2012 primaries?