A strong stand for election bromides

President Obama, known for his soaring oratory, has been having a hard time finding the right words to respond to the Iranians’ struggle for political change and freedom in a repressive society.

The reason: He has so much invested in his let-us-sit-down-and-settle-our-differences diplomatic approach to Iran that it has all but turned into a see-no-evil, hear-no-evil policy toward the Islamic Republic.

The headline in The Washington Post late last week seemed to capture Mr. Obama’s inability to respond fully to the massive protests in the wake of Iran’s rigged elections, which have disenfranchised millions of Iranians. It read: “U.S. Struggling for Right Response to Iran,” with a subhead that said, “Obama Seeks Way to Acknowledge Protesters Without Alienating Ayatollah.”

One week after the Iranian elections, Mr. Obama and other administration officials were still engaged in opaque verbal gymnastics to avoid offending the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, while all but dismissing what has become — let’s face it — the denial of basic human rights.

At the beginning of last week, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. responded weakly for the White House, saying the administration was taking a “wait and see” position. Then, even as the protests mounted into a sea of anger, the administration still seemed incapable of identifying with the pro-democracy demonstrators.

By Tuesday, Mr. Obama was stuck in the same benign, hands-off position of his earlier statements that this was a dispute that was “ultimately for the Iranian people to decide.”

But there was no direct sympathy for the Iranian people who were sure opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi had been denied the election by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government — only this generic bromide from Mr. Obama: “But I stand strongly with the universal principle that people’s voices should be heard and not suppressed.”

“A reporter shouted a question about whether he stood with the people of Iran, but Mr. Obama had already turned and left the stage,” White House correspondent Jon Ward reported in The Washington Times. Everyone in the room got the point.

As hundreds of thousands of demonstrators packed the central streets of Tehran last week to protest Friday’s election, amid widespread charges of vote fraud, the pictures of repression and state retaliation were flashed around the world. Basij paramilitary gangs, allied with the Iranian regime, were seen beating and harassing protesters. As many as eight or more were shot by government security forces. Others were rounded up and jailed.

Eventually, the cell-phone system was shut down by the government, and the foreign and Iranian press were barred from covering, recording or photographing the street protests by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. Earlier, there was an attempt to shut down Web sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

But the White House wasn’t budging from its pro-engagement position toward Iran’s militant regime. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton summed up that position by midweek: “We are obviously waiting to see the outcome of the internal Iranian processes, but our intent is to pursue whatever opportunities might exist in the future with Iran.”

The silence toward the Iranian people’s plight was deafening. Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, charged that Mr. Obama’s administration had abandoned “fundamental principles” of support for human rights.

But Mr. Obama turned even more dismissive of the Iranian voters who believed the election, and their struggle for basic democratic rights, had been stolen from them by an autocratic government.

“Although there is amazing ferment taking place in Iran, the difference between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi in terms of their actual positions may not be as great as has been advertised,” Mr. Obama told CNBC on Tuesday.

Mr. McCain, in an interview on CNN, said he was “frankly incredulous” about Mr. Obama’s statement.

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