Beautiful speech, but...

I am troubled by my tribalism.

I am susceptible, in case no one has noticed, to Obama's rhetoric.  I see myself, as I once noted, in the self-mocking confession of an old graduate school classmate (I give the provenance, because grad students in the humanities are likely to be of this tribe):

I love Obama...Every time he speaks I emit a small sigh of joy, love and delight.  I know, perhaps my eyes are clouded, but he seems so completely appropriate each time he speaks, that he could be singing the national anthem in Swahili, and I wouldn't care.

So when I read Obama's historic address to the students of the University of Yangon, Burma's principal university, my heart naturally swelled in my breast,  and tears welled up. It was, as you might expect (if you're so susceptible), a beautifully constructed speech -- opening dazzling prospects of freedom and prosperity to the Burmese, applying subtle pressure at all the right points on their leaders (as I heard no less tough a judge than Human Right Watch's Tom Malinowski affirm last night), honoring Burma's dissidents, making a cogent case, as Obama always does, that America's best values are or ought to be universal values, softening the paternalism by acknowledging past American error (i.e., in Foxspeak, "apologizing").

Ahmadi non grata?

Neil MacFarquhar and Gary Sick have both emphasized the extent to which Ahmadinejad has packed the organs of government with his loyalists over the past four years. Both sketch out a stealth militarist takeover of Iran's religious establishment -- with the extent of Khamenei's assent or leadership left somewhat ambiguous.

In today's New York Post, Amir Tahen shows the other side of the coin -- the pushback against Ahmadinejad and his power grab at all levels of Iranian society:

His legitimacy is challenged at all levels of Iranian society, including every segment of the Khomeinist establishment. He has to invoke Khamenei's authority in support of every move he makes. He is the first Islamic Republic president to have split the Khomeinist camp so deeply, and perhaps permanently.

Whenever I think, 'no government can long stand after such a loss of legitimacy,' I remember: the former Soviet Union. Cuba. Burma. North Korea. But still...Iranian society has been more free than any of those. Memory of its last revolution is still fresh. Powerful factions in its existing power structure dislike Ahmadinejad and resent the coup. There is reason to hope