What Obama just said and meant about Iran and democratic protests
In a somewhat unusual Saturday statement, usually reserved for significant deaths or tragedies, just out from the White House now, President Obama warns Iran's leaders that the world is watching, mourns the loss of life among demonstrators protesting the recent elections there and urges respect for the people and by the embattled theocratic government there.
The president has come under increasing domestic criticism for not standing stronger vocally with the pro-democracy forces in Iran, although such vocal support has misled some in the past to anticipate actual U.S. assistance, which was not forthcoming.
So Obama is walking a narrow public political/diplomatic line here. And no one knows what, if anything, the U.S. might be doing secretly to support/assist/advance the protesters.
As the president of a country whose own distant revolution would have failed without the timely "interference" of France for its own strategic purposes, Obama is trying to mollify those pro-democracy critics at home without appearing to interfere in what Iran's leaders would argue is a domestic matter.
Interference is something Obama promised not to do in his recent speech to the Muslim world from Cairo as he tries to coax Iran's hardline regime to join the international community through talk rather than threats.
Think, perhaps, of the U.S. reception had Iran or Iraq offered unsolicited advice during the 2000 Florida recount.
And, frankly, with two armed conflicts underway and his own troop surge in Afghanistan, Obama may not have the forces or stomach for actual interference beyond verbosity.
The fact that Obama quotes the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr, not exactly a religious icon in the Muslim world, which will get him all over the U.S. news on an otherwise slow summer Saturday, indicates what audience the chief executive is also trying to reach.
As The Ticket so often does, here's the president's entire statement.
Iran photo gallery right here. And for continuing coverage of the Iran situation, be sure to bookmark our buddy bloggers over at Babylon & Beyond.
-- Andrew Malcolm
The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching. We mourn each and every innocent life that is lost. We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people. The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights.
As I said in Cairo, suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. The Iranian people will ultimately judge the actions of their own government. If the Iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it must respect the dignity of its own people and govern through consent, not coercion.
Martin Luther King once said - “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” I believe that. The international community believes that. And right now, we are bearing witness to the Iranian peoples’ belief in that truth, and we will continue to bear witness. ###
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Photo credits: AFP / Getty Images; EPA.
Very weak beer from the President. Much better if he had said, "The Islamic Revolution in Iran will lose ALL legitimacy if it does not live up to its own stated standards of democracy. At this juncture, the only way to avoid that consequence is to give the people of Iran a fresh election, supervised by international monitors. Anything less will leave a permanent stain of dictatorship on the Guardian Council and Supreme Leader, and will make it impossible to recognize the current President as a legitimate representative of the Iranian people."
Posted by: Stuart Creque | June 20, 2009 at 02:21 PM
The Iran violence is unfortunate.
_______________
SCANDAL! SCANDAL! SCANDAL!
EMERGENCY! EMERGENCY! EMERGENCY!
George W. Bush continuously criminally stalked Margie Schoedinger to the point that she could not get away from it, and she committed suicide in desperation to escape: he murdered her.
“In her suit, Margie Schoedinger states that George W. Bush committed sexual crimes against her, organized harassment and moral pressure on her, her family members and close relatives and friends. As Schoedinger said, she was strongly recommended to keep her mouth shut. . . . Furthermore, she alleges that George Bush ordered to show pressure on her to the point, when she commits suicide” (blog of drizzten).
“One of those ‘very leasts’ [was] George Bush’s personal complicity in the death (murder to be precise) of my friend Margie Schoedinger in September of 2003. Determining the exact whereabouts and contacts of [then] president-elect George Bush on September 21 thru 22, 2003, should be entirely lacking in difficulty” (Leola McConnell—Nevada Progressive Democratic Candidate for U.S. Senate in 2010).
McConnell is correct: Bush applying pressure (continuously criminally stalking Margie Schoedinger) purposefully to force Schoedinger to commit suicide does in fact constitute murder where it culminated in her death.
Bush is a racist hate criminal and hates black people (please feel free to see my “GEORGE W. BUSH IS THE WORST PRESIDENT IN U.S. HISTORY” blog). (Schoedinger was an African-American woman.)
BEWARE: If the president of the United States hates one—for whatever reasons—he can continuously criminally stalk one to the point that one cannot get away from it, and one ultimately commits suicide in desperation to escape. He can murder people in this way.
Bush is getting away with his murder of Schoedinger—with no sheriff, prosecutor, or court willing to uphold the rule of law.
Bush’s method of murdering Schoedinger cannot exist in a vacuum: he must have murdered other people in the same way.
Bush should confess, come out with the names of all of the people whom he murdered in the disgusting way he murdered Schoedinger, undergo execution, and accordingly find himself at the intersection where he would be free.
(There are thousands of copies of the information above on the Internet. It exists very extensively in all major search engines. Please feel free to go to any major search engine, type “George W. Bush continuously criminally stalked Margie Schoedinger to the point that she could not get away from it, and she committed suicide in desperation to escape: he murdered her” or “Bush applying pressure (continuously criminally stalking Margie Schoedinger) purposefully to force Schoedinger to commit suicide does in fact constitute murder where it culminated in her death,” hit “Enter,” and find innumerable results.)
_______________
Andrew Wang
(a.k.a. “THE DISSEMINATING MACHINE”)
B.S., Summa Cum Laude, 1996
Messiah College, Grantham, PA
Lower Merion High School, Ardmore, PA, 1993
Posted by: The Disseminating Machine | June 20, 2009 at 05:39 PM
This is the kind of drivel James Earl Carter gave the same nation 30 years ago. He was unsuccessful then, so how will this affect anything now? We need an experienced leader in the White House. Will the REAL president please step forward?
Happy Dae·
http://ShoeStringGenealogy.com
Posted by: Happy Dae | June 20, 2009 at 06:00 PM
Obama is a gutless wimp who wouldn't defend his own daughter in a confrontation with a coyote pup.
Posted by: Defender of Democracy | June 20, 2009 at 08:55 PM
I'm commenting from Tehran. The world has seen just 10% of the past night (saturday) events in Iran,Tehran. Please and for God's sake increase pressure on your governments to put Iran's case to UN immediately. They did mass murder in Tehran last night. A crime without cameras and little world attention.
Posted by: Ebrahim | June 20, 2009 at 10:58 PM
I think Obama should speak out more.
If you think, by placating the Supreme Murderer in Iran, that Iran will give up there nuclear ambitions, then you're just out of touch with reality.
You can read what I've written about Iran over the past 10 days, and stick around for more good content.
Even if you don't like the politics, check out the humor.
http://libertarianhumor.com/category/iran/
Posted by: BigEdsBlog | June 21, 2009 at 08:29 AM
I agree with you big ed, he should speak out more. I think he has the potential to be one of the greatest presidnts ever, but he has to tread carefully at the moment, these are the most important times for him. He's gotta get it right. Toned Thighs
Posted by: Sarah | June 22, 2009 at 05:02 AM
Obama just proved that brains and balls don't co-exist in an American president!
While the Americans are famous for bragging about their democracy and how they believe in freedom for everyone, they took a devastating withdrawal from what could have been a leadership in political pressure against the hardliners beating and shooting the people in Iran bringing them to their knees under a well led and coherent international pressure!
Over the past two decades, America has encouraged the pro-democracy Iranian to stand up and has promised support and now to everyone amazement and disappointment she is chickening out!
These pro-reform Iranian are fighting America's worst enemy in middle-east: Ahmadinejad and his hardliner bunch and yet you Americans are too scared to move!
Obama is so taken away with his dream of becoming the angel of peace in middle-east that he is not willing to risk anything distorting his dream!
Well guess what Mr. President of the so-called "Land of freedom" !!!! You failed miserably on your first international test!
and no matter how much you would try to make peace in middle-east, your plan will be at the cost of so much innocent blood in Iran!
Shame on you America! Shame!
Posted by: Roy Gunny | June 25, 2009 at 07:27 AM
I think Obama has it just about right. If he took a harder line, he might move some of the anti-regime sentiment back onto the US.
Posted by: Bob Glaberson | June 25, 2009 at 11:08 AM
As usual, an LA Times blog post attracts the paranoid and the insecure. (Not sure which group I'm in...)
Just a comment on the closing paragraph of the post: your assumption of Dr. Kind not being an icon in the Middle East is flat wrong, especially in Iran, where the Black civil rights movement is still looked on as the pinnacle of the American ideals of freedom and struggle against tyranny. Iranians and Iranian Americans (myself included) sympathize with MLK and his generation of freedom fighters -- not only because Iranians love an underdog, but also because we hope someday to have our own MLK that can lead Iran to freedom.
Posted by: SDMichael | June 25, 2009 at 01:37 PM