Web Letters: Obama's Iran Response Should be Bolder

The great Los Angeles Dodger announcer Vin Scully often will remain silent and allow the crowd noise to tell the story for those listening on the radio. Even though Scully may well be the most literate baseball announcer during the past fifty years, he knows that silence can sometimes send the clearest message to the listener.

This is exactly what President Obama is doing. He is allowing the voices of the people of Iran to have center stage rather than trying to hog the microphone. It is too bad that his Republican critics don't understand this simple fact.

Richard Neffson

Rohnert Park, CA

I disagree with John Nichols. With millions peacfully protesting, the Iranians are doing very well for themselves with their responses! They, the Iranian citizens, are much more effective than any Westerner.

Can we wipe away eight years of the knee-jerk responses by our former president?

However, I do disagree with President Obama on his "no difference between Moussavi and Ahmadinejad" comment. Even if this is factual, the current internal events may actually force Moussavi to the center. Events do change/shape people, especially politicians.

As to John Nichols's headline and other writers/journalists, can we (at least on the left) refer to him as President Obama and not "Obama"?

Frank Vitacco

Pasadena, MD

I do not accept the notion of a stolen Iranian election. It was certainly a badly managed interference with a referendum, whose most favorable outcome, from our point of view, would have been a change in tone, and from the urban Iranian's point of view, a relaxation of social restrictions.

It does not, in any way, rise to the level of the Supreme Court's 2000 interference with our presidential election, or the crooked dealings in Florida in that year and Ohio in 2004.

In the context of our notorious intereference with democratic elections in Iran, Chile, most other countries of Central and South America, Vietnam, Indonesia, Congo, we would do well to suspend, for a generation or three, our meddling.

Barry Blitstein

New York, NY

This absurd piece of USA-government-endorsed propaganda is deserving of nothing less than complete condemnantion. Let the Iranian people decide through their own processes who should rule, and what the nature of that rule should be. Is this progessive war-hawk liberalism? I think so. The hypocrisy evident in this sanctimonious article is so flagrant that anyone with an ounce of decency should gush indignation.

Matt Bohart

Brooklyn, NY

While I disagree with Obama on economic issues, I am in general agreement with his cautious approach to Iran. In fact, I wish that threats of any kind were eliminated from his foreign policy statements. There are many countries in the world that do not share our beliefs, and we can't run around screaming at them because they have different belief systems. We have two wars on both sides of that country, and their cooperation would be helpful in resolving those conflicts. War is always the last resort, and you don't make threats that you are not willing to back up with force.

As a concept, Democracy is well understood around the world, and our sympathy goes out to people who are suffering anywhere. But as we have seen in Iraq, a missionary foreign policy has many unforeseen consequences and many people die!

Pervis James Casey

Riverside, CA