WASHINGTON – US President Barack Obama blasted the Iranian regime on Tuesday for
suppressing protesters, and called on those taking to the streets to show
courage in their pursuit for greater freedom.
“My hope and expectation is
that we’re going to continue to see the people of Iran have the courage to be
able to express their yearning for greater freedoms and a more representative
government,” Obama said at a press conference, comparing the demonstrations in
Iran with those that ousted Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak from office on
Friday.
RELATED:Clinton: Iranians deserve same rights as we saw in EgyptIran blames Israel, US for supporting protests“I find it ironic that you’ve got the Iranian regime pretending
to celebrate what happened in Egypt when, in fact, they have acted in direct
contrast to what happened in Egypt by gunning down and beating people who were
trying to express themselves peacefully in Iran,” he added.
Obama’s
comments came as officials throughout the administration intensified their
rhetoric against Tehran as early as Friday, and seized on the opportunity of the
unrest in Egypt to highlight Iran’s own treatment of its people.
On
Monday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton attacked the “hypocrisy” of the
Iranian regime.
“We would call to account the Iranian government that is,
once again, using its security forces and resorting to violence to prevent the
free expression of ideas from their own people,” she said. “We support the
universal human rights of the Iranian people... there needs to be a commitment
to open up the political system in Iran, to hear the voices of the opposition
and civil society.”
Clinton uttered a similar message in a round of
interviews with Arab media, in which she rejected the criticism that America’s
response to protests in Egypt did not go far enough in backing the
protesters.
Obama also defended his course in Egypt, declaring, “I think
history will end up recording that at every juncture in the situation in Egypt
that we were on the right side of history.”
He bolstered that claim by
noting that “what we ended up seeing was a peaceful transition, relatively
little violence, and relatively little, if any, anti- American sentiment, or
anti- Israel sentiment, or anti-Western sentiment. And I think that testifies
[to] the fact that in a complicated situation, we got it about
right.”
Obama described the new governing agents there as sending “the
right signals” – and particularly highlighted that the military council
currently in charge “has reaffirmed its treaties with countries like Israel and
international treaties.”
He also argued that the recent toppling of
Mubarak offered an opportunity for Middle East peace.
“When you have the
kinds of people who were in Tahrir Square, feeling that they have hope and they
have opportunity, then they’re less likely to channel all their frustrations
into anti-Israel sentiment or anti-Western sentiment, because they see the
prospect of building their own country,” he said.
Obama added, however,
that “democracy is messy.”
With demonstrations raging in the streets of
Tehran, Iran was the international destination that received the most attention
in Washington Tuesday – including the sharp change in tone in the Obama
administration’s response from its lukewarm support for opposition activists in
June 2009.
David Pollock, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for
Near East Policy, called the administration’s new tone on Iran and its efforts
to encourage the protesters there “a kind of foreign policy jujitsu.”
He
explained that while the loss of Mubarak had been seen by Iran as a setback for
the US, the Obama administration was trying to turn that against Tehran, which
had welcomed the Egyptian protests as an Islamic movement – a label rejected
even by the Muslim Brotherhood – and then refused to let its own people
demonstrate.
Pollock described the new US tone as one of “quicker, more
assured, higher-level, explicit support” for the democracy advocates – one which
it hopes will strengthen their efforts.
While the US faced criticism for
not being similarly assertive 18 months ago, when opposition groups rocked Iran
with protests that were put down with severe force, Pollock said the
circumstances since then had changed – including international nuclear
negotiations with the regime failing to achieve results since that
time.
He said the new American posture could prove important in
bolstering an isolated population that was standing up against a regime willing
to turn its fire against them.
He added, however, that even if change
didn’t come to Iran quickly – or ever – in the short term, the move was positive
for the US.
“It’s a tremendous help in countering the perception in the
region and beyond the region that the revolution in Egypt was a victory for
Iran,” he said. “It wasn’t. In fact, it helps to expose and even encourages a
serious problem within Iran, to inspire the opposition.”