One of the principles of judo and other martial arts is using your opponents energy against him. If someone pushes you, you yield with that part of your body, maintaining your balance and thereby causing him to lose his.
How did Obama use this principle this week? Let's consider the Islamic Republic of Iran ... and to a lesser extent, the Republican party.
Both the Islamic Republic and the Republican party are founded on a fragile footing, they are against. The Islamic Republic is against the Great Satan, the U.S. and the small Satan, Israel. (For a while it was Iraq, but times change.) The Republican Party on the other hand has operated for the last thirty years on the principle of being against big government, creeping socialism, the Soviet Empire and abortion. Not a pro in the lot.
So, what happened in Cairo last week? Obama, the President of the Satanic Republic of the United States gave a speech in which he showed respect for the Arab and Islamic world, revealed his own family's Islamic ties, and, by his mere presence, demonstrated that the United States, far from being a monolithic Satanic order, was a country with a thoughtful population who elected a black man with Islamic family members who struck a fair tone between Israel and the U.S. Well, well, thought the population of Iran, maybe the U.S is not a Satanic Republic after all.
I don't pretend this is the only reason for the events in Iran. The tensions between the mullahs and the populace had been building for some time. But the base upon which the mullahs build their power, anti-americanism, falling away, the edifice may have just cracked. The mullahs may have been judoed.
What about the Republicans? Well, consider Obama's two big domestic speeches, the one on race and the speech at Notre Dame on abortion. In both he made the point that both sides have a gripe. African Americans certainly have a gripe but so do whites who bear no individual responsibility for slavery or discrimination but have been passed over for promotion etc. As to abortion, the abortion opponents do have a point, but so does the pro-choice wing. The question, he said in both speeches, is can we stop dwelling on the past and look to the future? Can we together figure out ways to limit the number of abortions and talk black to white and white to black about race?
His point throughout has been get over the past and let's look to the future. What he seems to have discovered is that dictatorial regimes, domestic and foreign, seem to rest on having an enemy. Removed it, and the cracks show.
My guess is before too long the Islamic Republic of Iran as presently constituted will crumble of its own weight.