Recalling the conservative hysterics over Obama’s failure to make a speech when the uprising in Iran happened in June, a different view: From Abbas Milani CFR interview “…Iranian democrats have unambiguously sought the moral support of the U.S. government, but they have eschewed any hint of connection to any agency of the U.S. government. [Iran’s]tyrannical triumvirate has been desperate to find any credible link between the United States and the democratic opposition. So worried are they about the words of U.S. President Barack Obama that they have, incredibly, broadcast on at least one occasion a mangled translation of his speech, alleging that Obama has supported the efforts of the government to put down the “rioters.” The Obama administration, cognizant of the karma that
haunts it, and of the triumvirate’s machinations, has so far carefully, even masterfully, calibrated its statements to developments on the ground in Iran. It has avoided any effort to score cheap political partisan points at the expense of the nation’s long-term strategic interests. Obama has managed to at least partially realize two apparently irreconcilable goals of U.S. interests and ideals: He has offered support for the Iranian people, sternly criticizing the triumvirate’s brutalities, yet avoided offering any excuse for the paranoid regime to credibly claim that the United States is interfering in Iran’s domestic affairs.

cfr.org