Look, this is just thinking out-loud speculation and rumination, but it seems to me one hypothetical explanation of Obama’s behavior regarding Iran hasn’t been fully explored. Lots of commentators around here and elsewhere say that Obama is being standoffish because he’s determined to talk Iran into abandoning nukes. Here’s Rich:

For all the talk of Obama’s realism, he is pursuing a policy driven by a fantasy about international affairs — that all disputes can be resolved through negotiations and governments can be talked out of their interests. He is giving the Iranian demonstrators the cold shoulder partly because he believes he can deal with Khamenei and persuade him to give up Iran’s nuclear-weapons program.

Maybe so, and that’s how it seems to me most of the time. But this leaves the vital role of “linkage” out of Obama’s calculations. Remember, the president wants Israel to cave to all sorts of demands as part of a grand quid pro quo whereby the U.S. gets to work on forcing Iran to drop nukes in exchange for huge concessions by Israel. Well, what if getting Iran to drop its nukes is incidental and Israeli concessions fundamental? In other words, the prize of Obama’s foreign-policy agenda isn’t getting Iran to drop its nukes, but to force Israel to do what he thinks it must to make peace with the Palestinians and the Arab world.

I don’t think this would necessitate some dastardly anti-Israel scheme or bias. Rather, I think Obama has visions of bringing peace to the Middle East and settling the Israel-Palestinian issue. This is a vision that has visited every president for generations, and Obama has a more pro-Palestinian past than most. But wherever his sympathies may lie, it seems he has convinced himself as a matter of “realist” calculation that his only leverage in that struggle is Iran’s nuclear program and the petrifying Medusa’s head of Ahmandinejad. If the Iran card is taken out, or even substantially changes, what leverage does Obama have for his real goal?