Two good points on the Iranian situation from Gary Sick. He has some experience observing Iran as the principal White House aide for Persian Gulf affairs from 1976 to 1981, and working on the staff of the National Security Council under Ford, Carter, and Reagan. He’s also on the board of directors of Human Rights Watch, and is well known to students of history for his writings about the October Surprise. So he’s got a sense of the longitudinal aspect of the current struggle.

Don’t expect that this will be resolved cleanly with a win or loss in short period of time. The Iranian revolution, which is usually regarded as one of the most accelerated overthrows of a well-entrenched power structure in history, started in about January 1978 and the shah departed in January 1979. During that period, there were long pauses and periods of quiescence that could lead one to believe that the revolt had subsided. This is not a sprint; it is a marathon. Endurance is at least as important as speed.

I like that because it confirms what I’ve been thinking, which is that the show of force by Iranian hardliners is a sign of decreasing control leading to desperation. When you’re forced to assert that the election is the cleanest since 1979, while at the same time admitting there may have been 3 million votes screwed with; when you have to send in militia and riot cops to club peaceful demonstrators; when you have to eject representatives of the press, or keep them under house arrest; that’s when you better be packing your bags and arranging your Swiss bank account.

Sick points out that Iranian politics is a tricky and subtle business. “They prefer chess to football,” he says, a point I’ve also been known to make.

So what should we be doing?

For the United States, the watchword should be Do No Harm. The situation in Iran is being exploited for short term domestic political purposes by those who have been looking for an opening to attack the Obama administration. Wouldn’t it feel good to give full throated expression to American opposition to the existing power structure in Iran? Perhaps so — but it could also be a fatal blow to the demonstrators risking their lives on the streets of Tehran, and it could scotch any chance of eventual negotiations with whatever government emerges from this trial by fire.

The crisis in Iran is an Iranian crisis and it can only be resolved by the Iranian people and their leaders. There is no need to conceal our belief in freedom of speech and assembly and our support for the resolution of political disputes without bloodshed. But we should not be stampeded by domestic political concerns into pretending that our intervention in this crisis could be anything but pernicious.

Can President Obama play chess as well as he plays basketball?