That's not how I understand him. I think he means that a Mousavi win would allow Obama to start negotiating with Iran because the symbolic bad guy has gone. This would be in everybody's interest including Iran.
That's what I said -- he suggests that a Mousavi win would improve the west's strategic position WRT Iran. I doubt that it would. It would weaken the west's position because the symbolic bad guy has gone -- reducing the west's leverage and dividing its decision makers. Which is why Israel -- the only thing approaching a "pro-war" party, IMO -- was very clear (at least initially, before the protests and before it got wind of public opinion) that it wanted AN to win.
I do in fact think that that's a possibility. You assume that detailed policy decisions are made by Obama and other public figures.
Hmm -- not sure that I do assume that. It would be rather naive.
They are not. 99.99% of all policy decisions are made by more low-level staffers. I think it would have been a policy that was worked out under the GW Bush administration and carried over, maybe in watered down form. The figure of $400 M is usually quoted as current funding for anti-iranian activities. Such policies have worked before (e.g. support for Solidarity in communist Poland).
But we're confusing the issue here. Let's try to disaggregate -- your contention is that the Bush admin decided that with Mousavi, who is perceived internationally as a "moderate", as president, it would be able to "back down" and negotiate with Iran, that this was carried over into the Obama administration who continued the policy and pressured Mousavi into contesting the election result.
Furthermore, that the protests were engineered or seized on by "Empire", who desires war with Iran, or at the very least, regime change.
None of this explains the logic of this policy. A Mousavi win would not have been good for the US from a realist / Machiavellian perspective. Nor does it explain the contradiction in the heart of these two urges -- to de-escalate on the one hand, and to escalate on the other.