There are some who are criticizing Obama for not doing enough to directly support the protesters in Iran. John McCain, for one, thinks we should be more vocal in unequivocally supporting the Iranian people, and in a bizarre Twitter interview compared the situation to supporting Russian dissidents in the Cold War.

It's difficult to tell whether this is just a way to score points in domestic politics or whether McCain and others believe this is really prudent foreign policy, but it simply doesn't make sense to me. The one thing that Ahmadinejad wants right now is to be able to portray the protests as a Mossadeq-style coup being orchestrated by the U.S. government. We may have short memories when it comes to our history in the Middle East, but the Iranians certainly don't. There may be a time for more aggressive language from the Obama administration—when Ahmadinejad is further back on his heels and can't use it to his advantage—but that isn't now.