President Barack Obama toughened his rhetoric on Iran Tuesday, declaring he is “appalled” by the government crackdown and vowing “no iron fist” would prevent the world from witnessing post-election violence in Tehran.
“We have seen courageous women stand up to brutality and threats, and we have experienced the searing image of a woman bleeding to death on the streets,” Obama told reporters at a mid-day press conference. “While this loss is raw and painful, we also know this: those who stand up for justice are always on the right side of history.”
In nearly an hour of fielding questions, the president continued to calibrate his response on Iran, expressing sympathy and concern over the “heartbreaking” murder of a young demonstrator, but offering no direct censure for the disputed re-election of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
“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,” he said, adding there are nevertheless “significant questions” about the legitimacy of the elections.
“What’s happened in Iran is profound and we’re still waiting to see how it plays itself out,” Obama said.
The president also is trying to restore momentum to an increasingly complex health care reform effort, and used the occasion to repeatedly push for a public, government run health care option, challenging the claims of private insurers that it would run them out of business.
“If private insurers say the marketplace provides the best-quality care, if they tell us that they’re offering a good deal, then why is it that the government, which they say can’t run anything, suddenly is going to drive them out of business?” Obama said.
Industry officials and some free market Republicans in Congress complain that a public option, with no profit incentive and the help of government subsidies, would ultimately wipe out the competition.
In making his argument, Obama repeatedly invoked a straw man – arguing against “some notion that if we just stand pat, we’re OK.”
The debate in Congress is over how to fashion a remedy for the health care, system, and not whether to undertake it.
“So the notion that somehow we can just keep on doing what we’re doing and that’s OK, that’s just not true,” Obama said. “We have a long-standing critical problem in our health care system that is pulling down our economy.”
Asked if, in light of increasing unemployment, a second stimulus should be on order, Obama said “not yet.”
“We’re still not at actual recovery yet,” Obama said, reiterating an earlier prediction that nationwide unemployment will reach 10 percent.
“We know that the Recovery Act has had an impact,” Obama said. “We’ve got to get our Recovery Act money out faster (and) we’ve got to make sure that the programs that we put in place are working the way they’re supposed to.”
A new poll by the Washington Post/ABC News found barely half of Americans believe Obama’s $787 billion stimulus package will succeed in restoring the economy – a drop in support for the president from 59 percent who thought as much two months ago.
