In these matters, Barack Obama is, of course, the consummate grown-up. He neither issues ultimatums nor takes the bait when others do so. He is elaborately respectful of the sovereignty of other states (except, perhaps, when he authorizes drone strikes). At some deep intuitive level, Obama believes that he can persuade adversaries that their true interests lie in cooperation. But his presidency has offered him an education in the limits of this principle, domestically as well as abroad. He has learned that congressional Republicans don't actually want to cooperate for the greater good, and so he has belatedly started to issue demands -- extend the payroll tax cut, or else.
You can be too forbearing, as you can be too peremptory. Engagement does not work if it's one-sided. Indeed, Obama now seems to have applied this lesson to foreign affairs: According to the New York Times, the president has responded to the Iranian ultimatum with one of his own: the United States will treat any attempt to block the Straits as a casus belli. Unlike Iran, the United States delivered this message privately: The goal was to clarify the consequences of Iran's action, and to give them a chance to quietly back down, rather than to bully them into compliance.
If you deliver a threat in private, does that make it a diplomatic demarche rather than an ultimatum? Maybe; I won't quibble. It still comes with an "or else" attached. And if the threat to Tehran has the intended effect, perhaps it will embolden our ever-cautious president to try out this tactic elsewhere -- in Egypt, for example. Over the last week, Egypt's military government has engaged in a crackdown on civil society unprecedented even during the long rule of Hosni Mubarak. The time has come for Obama to tell Egypt's rulers that he will withhold some of the $1.3 billion in military aid, and then more, if they continue to send Egypt back towards autocratic rule. He should convey this threat privately, of course. And he should be prepared to make good on the "or else."
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