Abe, your take is exactly right. In fact, Obama’s statement was so so divorced from the reality of violence and murder we see via Twitter and BBC coverage and so ungrounded in what is unfolding (i.e. the potential overthrow of a despotic regime) that one has to ask: Did he intend it to be so awful? After all, even as a grammatical matter, why say he was “deeply troubled by the violence” — a completely passive construction designed to obfuscate who is being violent? There are three possibilities.

First, he asked the striped pants boys in Foggy Bottom to help craft a public statement. He told them: “Americans are horrified so throw a few bones, but these kids in Tehran might not have a chance — and I’m not sure I want so much upset since I need someone to engage — so don’t put in anything that could give a moment’s pause to the regime or make it more difficult for me to get my deal if it the regime survives.” If that was the direction, the statement was the precise one he was looking for.

A second alternative: No one in CIA, State, NSC or anywhere else in the U.S. government has a clue what is really going on in Iran. Can the security forces flip? Is there an internal schism among the clerics developing? No one knows and Obama only wants to talk healthcare. So stall and don’t foreclose any option. If that was the situation, the statement also met its intended purpose.

A third option: Obama is a savvy operator, has read the situation, understands precisely what the protestors want, has cleverly disregarded stray messages pleading for signs of overt support from the U.S. and is protecting the protestors from the appearance of being American stooges. If that was the situation, the statement almost met its intended purpose — because, of course, it could to a large degree wind up emboldening the mullahs (since Obama never said he was troubled by them) and send a shiver up the spines of the Tehran college kids trying to decide if they really want to risk their lives in the streets for another day.

I suspect it’s the first option, but could well understand it might be the second option.  We’ll find out in the days that follow whether this will be regarded as a defining error –a moment of lost opportunity to help spread panic among the mullahs and shift the moral prestige of the U.S. from the despots to the protestors — or a cunning diplomatic maneuver. I think I know which, but hope I am wrong.