Barack Obama finally weighs in on the Iranian protests with these weightless words:

"The world is watching."

And apparently watching is all the world is going to do, if Obama has anything to say about it.

"The last thing that I want to do is to have the United States be a foil for those forces inside Iran who would love nothing better than to make this an argument about the United States," Obama said. "That's what they do. That's what we're already seeing. We shouldn't be playing into that."

Beyond the paralyzed passivity, there's another problem here, too, exemplified both in Obama's remarks and in Joe Klein's self-contradictory morass yesterday: the notion that our actions must be hostage to the delusions of others. This is a well-known problem in game theory sometimes called the "madman's advantage," and Obama is in fact playing right into the mullahs' game. Allowing your opponent's delusions to subdue your own response limits your options and encourages even more irrational behavior from your opponent (which is probably why the Iranian response to Obama's apologetic overtures was to brazenly steal an election). By granting the semblance of legitimacy to irrational arguments, you allow them to choose the ground on which the ideological battle will be fought and do immense harm to your cause.

(This is also why responding to "trolls" in internet forums is generally discouraged (e.g. "please don't feed the trolls") as otherwise a discussion about interest rates can end up dominated by an argument over the finer points of whether the Jews were behind 9/11.)

The protests are now a week old, and Mousavi is apparently going to demand a nationwide strike if he is arrested. The question of whether Iran's Minutemen will achieve revolution or even a measure of reform now appears to rest on their will to continue and expand these protests. If the crowds start to evaporate this moment will be lost, but another few weeks of mass protests coupled with mass strikes and the regime will begin to become desperate.

UPDATE: Commenter kenb points to the excellent coverage from Nico Pitney, including some very graphic video of a young woman who appears to have been shot and killed.