‘World Is Watching’ Obama Warns Iran

House Passes Resolution Condemning Iranian Govt for Crackdown

While the Obama Administration has continued to insist that it does not intend to interfere in Iran’s election, the president today warned Iran that “the world is watching” and expressed concern about the comments made by the Iranian government.

In the week since Iran’s disputed election, the hundreds of thousands of supporters of the opposition candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi have taken to the streets of Tehran, clashing with police and pro-government militas. President Obama had previously insisted it was an internal Iranian matter and not something for the US to interfere in, but growing pressure to take a more interventionist stance appears to be shifting that stance.

The House of Representatives is likewise getting involved, passing a resolution 405-1 to support the protesters while condemning the Iranian government for the crackdown against protesters. Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) was the only dissenting vote.

The Iranian government has accused the US of meddling in the post election situation, and indeed the State Department has admitted to not only pressuring private website Twitter.com to hold off a scheduled maintenance date to help the protesters communicate, but says it is in constant contact with several social networking websites through which the protesters have passed messages and planned their opposition.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.