This also keeps the President from backing into a one sided approach.  If he threw his cards to Mousavi and the movement was quelled, he'd be back to President Bush's standing with the Iranian government, and that does nothing to help their people. The movement could likely be crushed, but Obama will still be able to engage Iran.  I'm not saying soft diplomacy is going to overthrow the mullahs, but a hard line stance will get us nowhere.  We don't plan to invade, but we've seen what isolating Iran has gotten us dipomatically - meddling in both Iraq and Afghanistan, a nuclear program and more fueling of Hezbollah and Hamas.

Furthermore, we need international support in dealing with Iran.  Taking this movement away from the Iranians and making it all about us does them no favors.  In another sense we'll play to past views of the United States and shoot ourselves in the foot in the process.  They're doing great on their own, stealing their thunder makes us meddling America once more.  They'll do much better at this then we will, and they'll serve our interests much more than inserting ourselves in the middle.

These are not the students in the dorms, they're the street young -- they know the ways better than most thugs - and these young, a surprising number of them girls, are becoming more agile in their ways as each night passes on.