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The Obama administration sent a not-too-subtle message to Iran today that the uprising in Egypt that led to the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak could spread and reinvigorate demands for more freedom in Tehran.

In a speech in Louisville, Ky., Vice President Joe Biden called the events in Egypt "a pivotal moment in history" and said it was time to let the people of Iran speak out freely.

"I say to our Iranian friends: Let your people march, let your people speak, release your people from jail, let them have a voice!" Biden said to loud applause of the University of Kentucky.

Later, speaking in his last news conference as White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs read from his briefing book to say the Iranian government is "quite frankly scared of the will of its people" in light of the call for democracy in Egypt.

"The Iranian government should allow the Iranian people to exercise the very same right of peaceful assembly and the ability to communicate their desires," as was demonstrated over the last 18 days in Egypt, Gibbs said.


this certainly doesn't fit the obama admin's mold of trying not to take sides in foreign crises. last time the iranian people protested, the commander in chief said, "We respect Iranian sovereignty and want to avoid the United States being the issue inside of Iran."

his initial statement on the russian invasion of georgia was as follows: "I strongly condemn the outbreak of violence in Georgia, and urge an immediate end to armed conflict. Now is the time for Georgia and Russia to show restraint and to avoid an escalation to full-scale war."

now it seems to me, that they've gone from delaying any kind of definitive response, to almost instigating something that hasn't even happened yet.

and while i appreciate the message, don't think that protests in iran would turn out anything like they did in egypt. the iranian government has shown already that it's not afraid of attacking its own people, and using a lot of violence to suppress opposition. how did we go from not trying to get involved previously, to getting involved before hand now?

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I did read this AM that there have been small protests in Algeria and additional protests in Yemen overnight.  I understand that Algeria was in a similar situation and that their president finally relinquished his "state of emergency" powers he took over almost 20 years ago while there was a nasty civil war going on in that country at the time.

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protests have been going on all over the muslim world. in addition to the ones you've named, there have been protests in jordan, sudan, and syria, and lebanon.

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I would imagine that the original line was a tactical line operated in the name of diplomacy.  I suspect that the accusation being bandied against the West that they've sat back and allowed dictators to hold sway is now being fully internalised.  It can't be in the West's interests to preach democracy as a virtue and inalienable rights and then, concurrently, refuse to support democratic movements abroad.  I'm not easily disposed to a 'moral' foreign policy and prefer interest driven approaches, but I suspect that western interests now dictate consistency

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This administration has zero ability in diplomacy.  It has screwed up everything it touched so far.

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Originally Posted by Dennis Young:
This administration has zero ability in diplomacy.  It has screwed up everything it touched so far.

that's pretty much true of domestic policy as well.

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I see tonight that the US has set up a Farsi Twitter account aimed at the people in Tehran.