Mike Pence Undermines the Iranian People

[Are_grits_groceries]

President Obama has made it explicitly clear that it would be counter-productive for the U.S. to intervene in the Iranian election and take sides in the political turmoil now roiling the nation. Indeed, even former Bush administration State Department spokesman Nick Burns said:

"President Ahmadinejad would like nothing better than to see aggressive statements, a series of statements, from the United States which try to put the US at the center of this, and I think President Obama is avoiding that, quietly rightly."

And the most important (if not only) Republican spokesperson on foreign policy, Sen. Dick Lugar, concurs with the President and Nick Burns:

The ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee sees no reason for the United States to intervene in the Iranian presidential election dispute at this time. 'Our position is to allow the Iranians to work out their situation

And someone with very erratic views on national security, Pat Buchanan, actually made complete and eloquent sense, concurring with the President, Burns and Lugar:

When your adversary is making a fool of himself, get out of the way. That is a rule of politics Lyndon Johnson once put into the most pungent of terms. U.S. fulminations will change nothing in Tehran. But they would enable the regime to divert attention to U.S. meddling in Iran's affairs and portray the candidate robbed in this election, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, as a poodle of the Americans.

So leave it to complete Republican political hack Mike Pence to play into the hands of Iran's oppressive regime and do exactly what Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been waiting for:

Today I'm introducing a resolution that will do just that. It will express its concern regarding the reported irregularities of the presidential election of 12 June, 2009. It will condemn the violence against demonstrators by pro-government militia in Tehran in the wake of the elections. It will affirm our belief in the universality of individual rights and the importance of democratic and fair elections. And lastly, and most importantly, it will express the support of the American people for all Iranian citizens who struggle for freedom, civil liberties and the protection of the rule of law.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adam-blickstein/mike-pence-undermines-the_b_216383.html

The resolution Ahmadinejad is waiting for.

[Oregone]

1. very important point

[ColbertWatcher]

2. Pence is a tool.

I'm hoping there isn't enough support to get the damn thing to a vote, much less passed.

Can someone introduce a resolution that condemns attention whores like Pence?

[Indydem]

3. Not defending Pence, but how is it any different than this?

Obviously all of us have been watching the news from Iran. 
And I want to start off by being very clear that it is up to
Iranians to make decisions about who Iran's leaders will be;
that we respect Iranian sovereignty and want to avoid the
United States being the issue inside of Iran, which sometimes
the United States can be a handy political football -- or
discussions with the United States.

Having said all that, I am deeply troubled by the violence
that I've been seeing on television.  I think that the
democratic process -- free speech, the ability of people to
peacefully dissent -- all those are universal values and need
to be respected.  And whenever I see violence perpetrated on
people who are peacefully dissenting, and whenever the
American people see that, I think they're, rightfully,
troubled.

My understanding is, is that the Iranian government says that
they are going to look into irregularities that have taken
place.  We weren’t on the ground, we did not have observers
there, we did not have international observers on hand, so I
can't state definitively one way or another what happened with
respect to the election.  But what I can say is that there
appears to be a sense on the part of people who were so
hopeful and so engaged and so committed to democracy who now
feel betrayed.  And I think it's important that, moving
forward, whatever investigations take place are done in a way
that is not resulting in bloodshed and is not resulting in
people being stifled in expressing their views.

Now, with respect to the United States and our interactions
with Iran, I've always believed that as odious as I consider
some of President Ahmadinejad's statements, as deep as the
differences that exist between the United States and Iran on a
range of core issues, that the use of tough, hard-headed
diplomacy -- diplomacy with no illusions about Iran and the
nature of the differences between our two countries -- is
critical when it comes to pursuing a core set of our national
security interests, specifically, making sure that we are not
seeing a nuclear arms race in the Middle East triggered by
Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon; making sure that Iran is not
exporting terrorist activity.  Those are core interests not
just to the United States but I think to a peaceful world in
general.

We will continue to pursue a tough, direct dialogue between
our two countries, and we'll see where it takes us.  But even
as we do so, I think it would be wrong for me to be silent
about what we've seen on the television over the last few
days.  And what I would say to those people who put so much
hope and energy and optimism into the political process, I
would say to them that the world is watching and inspired by
their participation, regardless of what the ultimate outcome
of the election was.  And they should know that the world is
watching.

And particularly to the youth of Iran, I want them to know
that we in the United States do not want to make any decisions
for the Iranians, but we do believe that the Iranian people
and their voices should be heard and respected.

[Are_grits_groceries]

4. Iranian human rights activists

and others have said that the US should stay out of it. President Obama's statement was exactly what they considered

a reasonable one. If our government steps in with strong statements, Ahmadinejad will say that Mousavi is a tool of

the US. They want the US to avoid any semblance of meddling in Iranian internal politics. It is hard not to speak out

forcefully, but that is a gesture to make us feel good about ourselves. It isn't what is wanted or needed now.