PRESIDENT OBAMA: 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.

Since when? The Islamic Repubilc is not and never has been a democracy, despite its use of republican window dressing. The President means (I hope), it should be up to Iranians to pick their leaders.

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.

That’s it? No outrage? No disgust? No resolve to see it stop?

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.

This is either brutally naïve or breathtakingly cynical. Is he just going to abandon the people to the tender mercies and “investigations” of the gangster government?

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.

He doesn’t mean critical. He means “to be continued at all costs—the preservation of the process being more important than the desired ends.”

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.

So…business as usual? Dealing with the government as legitimate when a large fraction of the population rejects it?

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.

Geez. What is this, the ’60s Cliché Recycling Machine? The eyes of the world only affect a government that gives a damn. As far as what the “hope”-filled people can take away is: we’ll watch you get beaten down and pull long faces. Maybe we’ll make a quilt with all your faces, or write a folk song. Welcome to the club of Chinese, Cuban, Egyptian, etc., dissidents.

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.

Ok, here he’s predictably overplaying the Mossadegh mea culpa, but fine, assure them that we’re not interested in taking the place over, but then you gotta give them more than “we believe your voice should be respected.” Like we believe in magic in a young girl’s heart? I mean, that’s just about as content-free a platitude as you’ll see.

Confucius* hopes he’s reading this wrong and we’re playing a more appropriate Persian game of waiting, guile, and misdirection.

*For those who came in late: Confucius is the Gormogons’ Œcumenical Volgi.

Confucius, Œc. Vol.

Don’t ask impertinent questions like that jackass Adept Lu.