The situation in Iran
“Iran's Guardian Council, a top review panel with responsibility for overseeing the June 12 presidential election, said it had uncovered some irregularities in the polls, finding the number of votes in 50 districts exceeded the number of voters,” the Wall Street Journal says. More: “The Guardian Council announcement, made Monday on state-run media, was the first admission by authorities of voter irregularities. But a council spokesman also said the irregularities were much less wide-spread than unsuccessful opposition candidates had alleged in recent complaints.”
The New York Times: "On Sunday, the police detained five relatives of Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president who leads two influential councils and openly supported Mr. Moussavi’s election. The relatives, including Mr. Rafsanjani’s daughter, Faezeh Hashemi, were released after several hours. The developments, coming one day after protests here in the capital and elsewhere were crushed by police officers and militia members using guns, clubs, tear gas and water cannons, suggested that Ayatollah Khamenei was facing entrenched resistance among some members of the elite."
Video: NBC's Richard Engel explains why the Iranian government has chosen to place responsibility for the civil unrest in Tehran on the shoulders of Britain and the United States.The president, in an interview with CBS to air today, addressed the situation in Iran: "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."
Yet Obama released a stronger statement over the weekend: "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.
And he also said this in an interview with an English-language newspaper in Pakistan: "We respect Iran’s sovereignty, but we also are witnessing peaceful demonstrations, people expressing themselves, and I stand for that universal principle that people should have a voice in their own lives and their own destiny. And I hope that the international community recognizes that we need to stand behind peaceful protests and be opposed to violence or repression. ... What’s clear is that the Iranian people are wanting to express themselves. And it is critical, as they seek justice and they seek an opportunity to express themselves, that that’s respected and not met with violence."
But Republicans maintain that Obama isn’t speaking strongly enough. Lindsey Graham, for one, called Obama "timid" on Meet the Press.
Chuck Grassley said on CNN's State of the Union: "I believe that we could be more forceful than we have." And: "If America stands for democracy and all of these demonstrations are going on in Tehran and other cities over there, and people don't think that we really care, then obviously they're going to question, do we really believe in our principles?"
Liberal columnist E.J. Dionne writes, “Obama's initial caution served the interests of freedom by making clear that the revolt against Iran's flawed election is homegrown. As the struggle continues, we cannot pretend that we are indifferent to its outcome. It's not easy to walk the progressive path. But Obama has always said that he knows how to deal with complexity. This is his chance to prove it.”
Video: Former Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., and former Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., discuss President Barack Obama’s reaction to the post-election unrest in the Islamic Republic with NBC’s David Gregory on “Meet the Press.”
The
Washington Post curtain-raises Friday’s Obama-Merkel meeting at the White House, saying that there has been tension between the two. “Since he moved into the White House, Obama has encountered a string of rebukes and lectures from Chancellor Angela Merkel and German lawmakers, who have irritated Washington by refusing to provide more help in fighting the Afghan war or closing the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, among other disputes. The diplomatic tensions stand in contrast to the rapturous greeting candidate Obama received in Berlin last July, when an estimated 200,000 people jammed the streets.”
“The sorest point has been over how to respond to the economic crisis, with Merkel and some of her ministers warning darkly that U.S. fiscal and monetary policies have been reckless and will trigger a global wave of inflation. In turn, Obama's advisers have complained that Germany -- the world's leading exporter and Europe's largest economy -- has done the least of any industrialized nation to fight the recession.”
