They Blame America Anyway

In an interview broadcast on CBS’s The Early Show Monday morning, President Obama was asked about his administration’s response to the protests 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,” Obama said. Obama added, “We shouldn’t be playing into that.” Of course, the regime is going to blame the U.S., UK and the West anyway. The regime’s standard playbook calls for trying “to make this an argument about the United States.” The regime has already called that play. From MEMRI, here is how Ayatollah Khamenei’s representative in Syria explained the protests:

“What happened in this case was that the U.S. and the West were expecting the presidency to be transferred to an element with whom they perhaps felt more at ease. They viewed this as an opportunity to exert pressure on the Islamic Republic. Therefore, behind the scenes of everything that is going on, one sees the same people who have been lying in wait for the Islamic Republic. Check out the foreign news agencies, as well as the foreign ministers of England, the U.S., and some other Western countries. They do not bear goodwill towards the Islamic Republic.”

And then Iranian spokesman Hassan Qashqavi, who sounds an awful lot like Baghdad Bob, branded the protests “instances of media, security and political warfare.” From Washington TV: