Ahmadinejad Blasts Obama, Again

Iranian opposition leader may be under house arrest

(NEWSER) - Mir Hossein Mousavi said today that the Iranian regime has pressured him to drop his challenges to the disputed election, but that he would resist any efforts to abridge his "constitutional right to protest." The opposition leader has not been seen in public for days, reports the Guardian, and he wrote on his website today that his "access to people is completely restricted"—reinforcing speculation he might be detained or under house arrest. More»

Two 'green' revolutions could bring down regime: Friedman

(NEWSER) - Pundits and politicians are wasting their time telling Barack Obama what he should be saying about the growing "green revolution" in Iran, writes Thomas L. Friedman. The country's reformers and protesters don't need American encouragement; they need a weakened theocracy—which will only happen when oil prices go into freefall. "Launching a real green revolution in America," writes the New York Times columnist, "would be the best way to support the Green Revolution in Iran." More»

(NEWSER) - President Obama talks a lot about "false choices," and he's usually just blowing smoke rhetorically, but now he's got one regarding Iran, writes Fred Barnes in the Weekly Standard. “The president thinks he’s stuck with a dilemma,” Barnes writes: “Either support the democratic forces” or “preserve his chance to negotiate” with the regime on larger issues such as nuclear weapons. “The two options aren’t mutually exclusive,” Barnes says. “The choice is indeed false.” More»

It may anger neocons, but he should keep his hands clean: Stephens

(NEWSER) - Barack Obama and his team clearly want to support the Iranian opposition, writes Philip Stephens, and Republicans such as John McCain have hammered the president for not condemning an election viewed as a sham. But for the Financial Times columnist, Obama is striking a shrewd balance between idealism and real-world politics. Obama knows, he writes, that "overt US backing for Mousavi would hand a weapon to Ahmadinejad." More»

(NEWSER) - Westerners may well be wondering what happened to the articulate young Iranians who endorsed presidential challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi on TV recently. Didn't those freedom-loving voters represent today's Iran? "Actually, no," writes Christopher Dickey in Newsweek. "It appears that the working classes and the rural poor—the people who do not much look or act or talk like us," have chosen Iran's president. More»