Obama sings his half-step with the Arab Spring

Much has been written about the tension between Obama the idealist, spokesman and putative embodiment of American ideals that he loves to cast as universal, and Obama the realist, coldly pursuing American interests, often with stealth lethality, and weighing the costs of intervention with hyper-rationality. 

With that tension in mind, take a look at Obama's careful presentation to the U.N. of American response to the Arab Spring (my emphasis):