By Zenitha Prince
Washington Bureau Chief
A protester recoils after throwing a projectile at Iranian riot police in Tehran, Iran on June 20.(Courtesy Photo)
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(June 24, 2009) - President Barack Obama on Tuesday delivered what one political analyst called a “smackdown” to detractors of his tempered response to the Iranian government’s brutal crackdown on the thousands of citizens, who over the past 10 days, took to the streets in post-election demonstrations.
Despite Republican characterizations of his response thus far as “timid” and “weak,” the president said he had no plans to alter his tone or his message—though he seemed to take a firm hand with naysayers like Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) during his press conference Tuesday, suggesting that lawmakers should stick to their duties on Capitol Hill.
“I think John McCain has genuine passion about many of these international issues….[But] I'm president of the United States, and I'll carry out my duties as I think are appropriate. All right?” Obama asserted.
The president also seemed to dismiss the idea that he had been in any way influenced by conservative grumblings.
“What do you think?” he deadpanned in response to a question on the matter.
Still, President Obama did, in fact, offer a more robust, less ambiguous criticism of Tehran’s bloody answer to protests over President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s disputed election victory—though it’s unclear whether that was prodded by domestic criticism or by the escalation of events in Iran.
He was “appalled and outraged” and wanted to “condemn” the beatings, threats and imprisonment employed by the Iranian government against its citizens, the president said.
And referring to the death of Neda Agha-Soltan, an Iranian woman who became a martyr of the protests after the widespread dissemination of a video showing her death after she was shot, Obama said, “While this loss is raw and extraordinarily painful, we also know this: Those who stand up for justice are always on the right side of history.”
Still, the president’s measured words bore testament to his continued hopes—now dwindling—for future talks with Iran about curbing its nuclear program among other issues.
But Iran’s handling of the demonstrations—including its attempts to paint the U.S. as the instigator of the riots—diminishes those hopes and seems to support Obama’s decision to credit the Iranian people for the demonstrations and avoid the appearance of meddling.
“My role has been to say the United States is not going to be a foil for the Iranian government to try to blame what's happening on the streets of Tehran on the CIA or on the White House; that this is an issue that is led by and given voice to the frustrations of the Iranian people,” Obama said in a sometimes testy exchange with reporters, who questioned the intensity of the president’s response.
“You guys must have seen the reports. They've got some of the comments that I've made being mistranslated in Iran, suggesting that I'm telling rioters to go out and riot some more. There are reports suggesting that the CIA is behind all this -- all of which are patently false. But it gives you a sense of the narrative that the Iranian government would love to play into.”
And the narrative some in the GOP want to play into as well.
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said after Obama’s press outing Tuesday that the president was responsible for escalating violence in Iran over the past few days.