GOP attacks Obama over Iran

June 22, 10:32 AMPortland Progressive ExaminerMichael Stone

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President Barack Obama

The Republican GOP is attacking President Barack Obama over his handling of the crisis in Iran. They are angry at the President for not taking a tougher public stand in support of Iranians protesting the outcome of the country's contested presidential election. Neoconservatives are urging President Obama to denounce the voting as a sham and insert the USA directly into Iran’s unrest.

Contrary to Republican desires, the president is sending a measured message to the Iranian leadership. Yet for many in the GOP, this is not enough. "The president of the United States is supposed to lead the free world, not follow it," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said on a Sunday morning talk show. "He's been timid and passive more than I would like."

Yet as the demonstrations, particularly in the Iranian capital of Tehran, have continued and the death toll among protesters increases, Obama has been stiffening his response while trying to avoid giving Iran's theocratic leadership the opportunity to blame the U.S. for the unrest that has swept the country since the June 12 vote.

The GOP call for bluster and rhetoric will serve no purpose but to further endanger the protesters and further inflame the powers that be in Iran. Talk is cheap. Obama could go after the cheap applause line, but instead he chooses to keep his cool and do the right thing.

President Obama, in a CBS interview released Sunday, said "The last thing that I want to do is to have the United States be a foil for those forces inside Iran who would love nothing better than to make this an argument about the United States. We shouldn't be playing into that."

The following is a statement released last weekend from the President regarding Iran:

"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."

President Obama's statement was appropriate. He is playing his cards well.  Like it or not, in Iran Obama and the west have very few cards to play.  Saber rattling and harsh rhetoric may soothe the Neocon's savage breast, but it will do nothing to further the cause of the brave Iranians protesting in the streets of Tehran.