President Barack Obama said Monday he was disturbed by the violence following last week’s Iranian elections, but stopped short of calling them fraudulent.
“I am deeply troubled by the violence I am seeing on television,” Obama said during a meeting with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. “I think that the democratic process, free speech, the ability of people to peacefully dissent, all of those are universal values and need to be respected.”
The president said he sympathizes with Iranians’ “sense of having been betrayed” by the outcome, which ended in the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
While the Iranian president’s statements are sometimes “odious,” Obama said, “We respect Iranian sovereignty and want to avoid the United States being the issue inside of Iran.” Obama continued, “Sometimes the United States can be a handy political football.”
Republican lawmakers stepped up pressure on the administration to take a harder line on Iran, saying the U.S. government must to do more to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions and call foul on the elections.
“The administration’s silence in the face of Iran’s brutal suppression of democratic rights represents a step backwards for homegrown democracy in the Middle East,” said Republican Whip Eric Cantor of Virginia.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., called on Obama to condemn the elections and drop his plans to engage with Iran.
“Initial reports by, quote, ‘administration officials’ are that they say they’re not going to change their policy of dialogue,” McCain said. “It’s obvious that this was a rigged election and depriving the people of their democratic rights.”
The Iranian elections have put the Obama administration in a thorny spot. The White House so far appears unwilling to antagonize Ahmadinejad, in case he hangs on to power and it has to deal with him in the future.
At the same time, Obama can’t afford to look conciliatory toward a government in defiance of democratic principles. With France and Great Britain expressing concern over possible election fraud, the White House sounded more than willing to see other countries take the lead in challenging the results.
Violent protests continued in Tehran on Monday, as thousands gathered in defiance of a ban on rallies in the wake of Ahmadinejad’s defeat of Mir Hossein Mousavi.
Obama today will meet with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, where the top issue for discussion will be the international response to North Korea’s recent nuclear tests.
North Korea has threatened war over plans by the United Nations Security Council to forcibly inspect the country’s air and sea shipments as part of a new round of international sanctions following North Korea’s nuclear tests in May.
“I don’t think you’ll see any daylight between President Lee and President Obama in terms of North Korea,” said Victor Cha, Korean chairman at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and a former member of the National Security Council.
