Obama "Appalled and Outraged " With Iran Violence

Barack Obama is a popular president.

With an average approval rating of 61 percent in seven polls taken this month, according to CNN's Poll of Polls, Obama is more popular than George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan was at this point in his presidency.

But Obama needs to spend some of that capital, using his personal popularity to pump up support for his more controversial policy initiatives -- especially healthcare and energy reform.

And there is some evidence that he is willing to do so.

Unfortunately, the world has a way of intruding -- and of defining the discussion.

So it was that, at a presidential press conference where the president wanted and needed to get a message out about domestic policy, he found himself answering a lot of questions about the crisis that has developed in Iran following that country's presidential vote.

Obama, who has taken criticism for being too soft and diplomatic in his response to evidence of election fraud and images of a brutal crackdown on democracy demonstrators, was clearer in his language than at any time since the Iranian crisis developed.

The United States must, the president said, "bear witness to the courage and dignity of the Iranian people and to a remarkable opening within Iranian society. And we deplore violence against innocent civilians anywhere that it takes place."

But Obama did not merely bear witness.

More bluntly than at any point yet, Obama decried the violence.

"The United States and the international community have been appalled and outraged by the threats, beatings and imprisonments of the last few days," he declared. "I strongly condemn these unjust actions."

Even that may not have been so bold a statement as Obama's Republican critics have been calling for -- and that some European leaders have issued. But the president's other statements on the crisis offered a reminder of the tightrope the president is walking with regard to Iran.

Because of the US invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, and because the Bush-Cheney administration so frequently poked at Iran -- rhetorically and practically -- the United States is seen as a manipulative player in the region.

So even as he spoke of bearing witness, Obama found himself in the delicate position of denying as "patently false and absurd" claims by some players in Iran that the United States is "instigating protests" on the streets of Tehren.

The accusations, Obama pointedly declared at his midday news conference, "are an obvious attempt to distract people from what is truly taking place within Iran's borders."

"This tired strategy of using old tensions to scapegoat other countries won't work anymore in Iran," said the president, reaffirming the position he has maintained since before the Iranian election. "This is not about the United States and the West; this is about the people of Iran and the future that they -- and only they -- will choose."

The president left no doubt of his sentiment with regard to Iran's future: "There is a peaceful path... to legitimacy... we hope they take it."

Obama said Iran's "faith, sovereignty and traditions" can be respected while at the same time the country's government can and should be prodded to respect "international norms and principles" regarding violence and the right of peaceful dissent.

Those will be the takeaway lines from today, and that is as it should be -- even as it should be remembered that the president made one of his strongest statements yet with regard to the necessity of domestic reform: "When it comes to healthcare, the status quo is unsustainable. Reform is not a luxury, it is a necessity."

Obama, like any president, must always struggle with the domestic-foreign balance. This day, appropriately, the weight on his shoulders was that of the world. And, as one of those who has prodded him to be more outspoken and blunt in his remarks regarding Iran, I am reassured that he is on the tightrope and walking it well.

Comments (19)

1. NICHOLS: ...Obama...:"Reform is not a luxury, it is a necessity."

   IF Magic `reforms' healthcare the way he `reformed' the ailing economy and managed to increase unemployment beyond what he said it would be w/OUT a Pork bill....would HAPPY days be here?

   Hopey and Changey....you voted for it....now, keep spinning...for 3.5 more years!

   Posted by Happy at 06/23/2009 @ 1:53pm

2. happy,

   shut up.

   ~darla

   Posted by darladoon at 06/23/2009 @ 2:10pm

3. Posted by Happy at 06/23/2009 @ 1:53pm

   And as noted on the other thread, unemployment kept rising for nearly a YEAR after the "panacea" of tax cuts under the old "Messiah", Ronald Reagan.

   Which HAPP...happily forgets now.

   Posted by Mask at 06/23/2009 @ 2:43pm

4. BTW, expect right-wing attacks on "Obama is not being supportive enough of the Iranian people"....to taper off.

   As they've now lost...Pat Buchanan....George Will....Joe Scarborough....and ...wait for it...

   Bill O'Reilly, all onboard with Obama's stance on the on-going revolt.

   Soon like "Sotomayor is a racist"...it'll be Rush and his youthful ward, Sean the Boy Blunder, and a handful of RW bloggers....heheh

   Posted by Mask at 06/23/2009 @ 2:45pm

5. The Repubs shit the bed and then have the unmitigaged gall to bitch about the stink.

   What a bunch of ass-clowns.

   Posted by Balrog at 06/23/2009 @ 3:00pm

6. The two top stories on BBC News: "Obama condemns 'unjust' violence" "'Dozens dead' in US drone strike"

   Who's the pot, and who's the kettle?

   Posted by jcg2u at 06/23/2009 @ 3:17pm

7. Given that, under President Obama, more innocent people have died in US airstrikes in "Af-Pak" than have died at the hands of the repressive state authorities in the civil disorder in Iran, if Obama is "appalled" by the violence in Iran, he must be tenfold "appalled" by his own administration.

   US condemnations of the mess in Iran are hypocritical and lack any credibility whatsoever. Not only has the US caused quite recently vast and unnecessary violence and death in the Middle East (see: "Iraq") but the US has been an open adversary of democracy (see: "Palestine", "Lebanon") and maintains as its closest allies in the region the brutal states of Israel and Saudi Arabia.

   Is Mr. Obama not "appalled" at the degree of repression that his good friend the King of Saudi Arabia indulges in whenever there is a nascent movement to open up Saudi Arabia politically? The repression in Saudi Arabia is far worse than any that exists in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

   Posted by syfriendly at 06/23/2009 @ 3:41pm

8. This too, from Chris Floyd: <chris-floyd.com>:

   "When I saw that the president also invoked the words of Martin Luther King Jr. ('Martin Luther King once said, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice'"), I very nearly threw up. To quote an apostle of non-violence, who spent his last days standing with striking workers and railing against the American government as 'the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today' because of its murderous war machine, when you yourself are in command of that war machine, spewing out Vietnam-style death (and 'targeted assassinations') in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan; when you are striving with all your might to defend, shield and in many cases continue the heinous torture atrocities of your predecessor... -- well, that seems a bit much, if I may riot in understatement."

   Posted by jcg2u at 06/23/2009 @ 3:49pm

9. <i>Posted by syfriendly at 06/23/2009 @ 3:41pm </i>

   As I've argued before, hypocrisy is not a reason to avoid doing the objectively right thing, and there's strong evidence that many Iranian NGOs don't see it that way either. They have been begging and pleading for President Obama to address the situation in the frank language it deserves.

   Moreover, the situations in Afpak and in Iran aren't remotely comparable. A lot of innocent people are getting killed in Afpak, and people shouldn't hesitate to speak up about that. However, in Iran, it is almost EXCLUSIVELY innocent people who are being killed. Iranian personnel are armed, but the protestors clearly are not. What's going on in Iran isn't "civil disorder" or "a little bit of trouble at home," it's a full-blooded effort by the state to repress a movement that demands freedom. What the Iranians themselves continually say is that this whole struggle is no longer defined by Ahmadinejad v. Mousavi. And that is why Pence was still right. I had my doubts for a while, and still agree with many Iranians that military aid and even financial aid would likely be a bad call, but certainly we should not hesitate to make the current human rights abuses known and promote access to information about what is taking place.

   Finally...what the Iranians keep saying is that US expressions of support, rather than provoking accusations of meddling that are already being made anyway, could give them motivation to continue. If we refuse to do that, how in the world will democracy ever develop in Saudi Arabia? If we are silent or tepid when a democracy movement springs from native soil, what reason do we have to think that others will do the same?

   Posted by Thrawn at 06/23/2009 @ 4:27pm

10. Khamenei can denounce now the American violence in Pakistan - in one single attack, the American military has probably killed more innocent people than Iran has during the civil disorder so far:

    " ... Suspected U.S. Drone Strike Kills at Least 60 in Pakistan

    By PIR ZUBAIR SHAH and SALMAN MASOOD Published: June 23, 2009

    ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- A suspected United States drone strike killed at least 60 people at a funeral gathering in South Waziristan on Tuesday, residents of the area and local news reports said.

    Details of the attack, which occurred in Makeen, remained sketchy but the reported death toll was exceptionally high and, if indeed accurate and carried out by a drone, would make the strike perhaps the deadliest since the United States began using the unmanned aircraft to fire remotely guided missiles at suspected Taliban and Qaeda members in Pakistan's tribal areas ..."

    NYT headline article now.

    I repeat: US condemnations of the violence and repression in Iran lack any credibility, and are hypocritical.

    Posted by syfriendly at 06/23/2009 @ 4:31pm

11. <i>Posted by IlyaKuryakin at 06/23/2009 @ 8:35pm </i>

    Too bad this doesn't respond to, well...ANY of the actual arguments that have have been made regarding fraud.

    And also, how's about "patriot" Ahmadinejad's brutal response to unarmed protestors? Your silence on that matter is awfully telling. As is your nonsense assertion that the current wave of popular upheaval is "phony."

    Posted by Thrawn at 06/23/2009 @ 8:44pm

12. The Iran coverage in the US has officially entered its Monty Python phase: the surrealism has gone to the point where Western media before Eastern media has annointed her a "martyr" while publishing glamour shots. O Western World!

    " ... The young woman who last weekend emerged as a powerful symbol of opposition to the Iranian government embraced life in many ways, but there was little about her that would have led her friends to predict she would become a martyr, one of them told CNN. full story ... "

    Posted by syfriendly at 06/23/2009 @ 9:43pm

13. Amazing. We now have a poster taking shots at the media for waxing melancholic about a teenage girl who was murdered in the street by fundamentalist thugs.

    People can become symbolic, especially when itchy trigger fingers make a pretty corpse of them.

    Now would be an opportune time for the conscientious, liberal left to distance themselves from the moral equivalence, the west is the worst crowd. It may not be politically necessary at this moment, but chances are that will change. More importantly, its a moral imperative to take the hate goggles off.

    The true orientalists are the haters who see a klansman in every nook and cranny of the flyover. Quick, how many honor killings last year in Alabama?

    If the reflexive hatred of the hard left doesn't lead us to suicide (which I doubt), it will eventually ignite a backlash against the virtues of self-reflection which had served us westerners so well.

    As for equivalence, how many innocent died in Dresden? And while we practiced apartheid at home. Yet, still...

    My heart is with Neda. And I think most of yours.

    Posted by gangpapist at 06/23/2009 @ 10:06pm

14. Typical of The Nation as self-appointed flag bearer of the American scrawny herd of proggie-groggies: Shove their heads under the huge heaps of cow dung produced by the White House incumbent when dealing with the people's basic needs and rights and sift the manure, searching for rhetorical pearls of political correctness.

    Booooring!

    Posted by WWW at 06/24/2009 @ 01:15am

15. Obama isn't appalled and outraged. He just doesn't want to waste a "good" crisis. He learned that from Saul Alinski's book of Rules for Radicals.

    Obama is trying to play out what he learned from his early days teaching Saul Alinski's principles (Rule for Radicals) at ACORN, the rag tag organization that has profited immensely from Obama's liberal so-called stimulus package. Obama wants revolution into a purely socialist state. He doesn't appreciate what our history has taught us nor recognize the significant value of free enterprise via individual incentive, had work and personal sacrifice. He wants to tax us to the hilt and spred the wealth around as he told Joe the Plummer. Coming from Chicago, he should know that Milton Friedman was a Nobel prize winner for his contribution to economics. Apparently this has all passed right over Obama's head.

    Posted by shorewater at 06/24/2009 @ 11:03am

16. Because, in reality, you are not "defending" Democracy in Iran...you are stressing over the INSURMOUNTABLE OPPRESSION you feel at HOME.

    Posted by IlyaKuryakin

    So...what's your point?

    Anonymous.

    Posted by Malcontent at 06/24/2009 @ 11:18am

17. It's not like CNN is going to TOUT Appalachian in-bred sex crimes, for example.

    Posted by IlyaKuryakin at 06/23/2009 @ 11:16pm

    You're hilarious in a pointless sort of way.

    Posted by winyahn at 06/25/2009 @ 8:56pm

18. <i>Posted by IlyaKuryakin at 06/23/2009 @ 9:42pm </i>

    Actually, I'm fairly sure you haven't (though I'll also throw in the "more than 100% reporting" factoid...but I'm sure there's a perfectly rational explanation). I made the statistical argument already (about massive anomalies in digits that should not be repeating nearly as much as they did), and then there's all the prima facie factors that make this incredibly suspicious. I'll list more if you like.

    The funny thing is, though, that you keep ignoring the important part: jailing and shooting people. And the fact that Ahmadinejad probably isn't sitting on the sidelines bemoaning all the imprisonments and killings.

    And then there's your arguments about the U.S. Hmm, I wonder what would happen if massive numbers of people marched on D.C. Especially if they were led by some reverend demanding civil rights. Surely they'd be shot or mass-imprisoned or something. Especially if if he were thought to be communist, like a state we weren't too friendly with.

    But wait...that didn't happen. MLK was monitored...and that's it. No mass arrests, nothing like that. Funny, huh? Maybe that's just because I feel so oppressed that I can't say otherwise.

    Or...it could be something else. Hmm...denying Iran is oppressive, but insisting that the US is. There's a word for that, I'm sure of it. Ah, there it is:

    Projection

    Posted by Thrawn at 06/27/2009 @ 12:45am

19. He is popular, but the numbers that matter are not at the beginning of an administration but at its end. And how history will regards him.

    History will certainly celebrate the fact that a black African American gained the White House in 2008. But credit for that goes to America and her people. How Barack Obama's performance will be judged is an open question.

    So far he keeps demonstrate his ability to speak well and to think on his feet. But that is only remarkable in contrast to his predecessor who could do neither. George Bush had no control over his voice which suggests he had little control over his thoughts, and when he ad libed, he tended to punctuate his remarks with a giggle suggesting a lack of self confidence. Obama is the opposite of that. He is brim full of self-confidence. He communicates well. But so do most professional speakers, radio show hosts, preachers, emcees, academics. The voice is a politicians tool in trade. His/her career depends on the ability to use it. George Bush was a remarkable exception. Had Obama's predecessor been a Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Reagan or Clinton - Obama would be nothing special as a communicator. We would not be so fixated on the fact that he can speak and more concerned about what he says and does.

    That explains the discrepancy between his high personal popularity, and the mediocre and even negative polling numbers for his handling of the economy, the auto bailout, Guantanamo.

    Posted by Hugo_Pirovano at 06/27/2009 @ 8:01pm