Pennsylvania: Iran

Tom Tomorrow brings up an interesting point in his most recent cartoon.

About the conservatives who are criticizing President Obama for not speaking out more forcefully in support of the protesters in Iran, he says that some of the same folks, not too long ago, were advocating mass death in Iran. Remember this?

Or remember how William Kristol said that Bush might bomb Iran if he thought Obama was going to win?

Or when Joshua Muravchik, resident scholar over at the American Enterprise Institute wrote an Op-Ed in the LA Times in November, 2006, that began with these words:WE MUST bomb Iran.Who did they think would get hurt when the bombs dropped?

Glenn Greenwald has the story.

From Whitehouse.gov:
The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching. We mourn each and every innocent life that is lost. We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people. The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights.

As I said in Cairo, suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. The Iranian people will ultimately judge the actions of their own government. If the Iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it must respect the dignity of its own people and govern through consent, not coercion.

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt - The Obama administration already has concluded that a diplomatic overture to Iran - one of the central promises of the president's election campaign - is unlikely to persuade that nation to give up its nuclear ambitions.