Tongue-Tied on Tehran

Joe Biden was unusually disciplined on "Meet the Press" Sunday -- his son had told him to keep it short -- and particularly terse on the subject of Iran.

"There's an awful lot of question about how this election was run," the vice president said, adding: "I mean we're just waiting to see."

Could he -- should he -- have gone further?

On one level, we instinctively distrust the results of an election that gave a 2 to 1 victory to the Holocaust-denying president. The Ahmadinejad government controlled the counting process, and that just happened to declare him a landslide winner, despite Mir Hossein Mousavi's charges of fraud. And does anyone really believe that Ahmadinejad won among every group and in every region, including Mousavi's home turf?

And it is difficult not to be buoyed by the sight of so many Iranians pouring into the street to protest the election results, the kind of dissent that is usually suppressed by the regime in Tehran. The hunger for democracy seems real and palpable.

But even if solid evidence that Ahmadinejad stole the election surfaces, what, exactly, should the Obama administration do about it?

Our influence with Iran is obviously limited, as is evident from the West's inability to stop its nuclear program. The president seemed to be pursuing a thaw in relations from the Bush freeze of the past eight years, perhaps as a step toward a negotiated settlement.

But wouldn't the United States lose whatever shred of leverage it has if Obama denounces the election and Ahmadinejad remains in power?

On the other hand, can a president who talks about the ideals of democracy remain silent during a popular uprising over a highly suspicious election in a key Middle East country?

That is the conundrum facing the administration. And conservatives are denouncing Obama with varying degrees of fervor.

National Review calls on the president to back the protesters:

"Nothing like this has been seen since the shah was overthrown 30 years ago and the Islamic Republic installed. How far repression will go is unforeseeable, but the regime's misguided manipulation and recourse to violence is a lasting stain. The supreme leader and his president have little choice except to pretend to strength. President Obama should call them on it, lending the opposition his rhetorical support. So far, he has given the impression that he wants the dictatorship to stabilize itself so he can get back to the work of appeasing it. The more Obama extends that hand of his, the likelier the regime is to try to crush its bones."