Obama Pundit

by Obama Pundit

President Obama has finally decided to make the kind of statement on Iran that he should have made all along:

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.

Martin Luther King once said – “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” I believe that. The international community believes that. And right now, we are bearing witness to the Iranian peoples’ belief in that truth, and we will continue to bear witness.

This is an entirely appropriate statement that should have been made much earlier.  Those who defended Obama for not saying enough earlier on the grounds that it would meddle with Iranian politics will no doubt reverse course and agree that is was proper.   Still, after seeing these images and videos, I wonder if it was tough enough.

Also, to echo a point made  by C. William Chattin, he is still in love with the use of the first person in his speeches (I believe that. The international community believes that…).  He needs to remember that when he speaks, it is on behalf of the American people, not just himself.  Other than that minor quibble, this statement is a step in the right direction.