Obama repeated that “America seeks dialogue” and stated: “There is no reason for the United States and Iran to be divided from one another.” But the bulk of the message condemned the regime’s efforts to cut Iranians off from the outside world. “An electronic curtain has fallen around Iran,” he said. He used the phrase “electronic curtain” three times in his brief message.
His concluding point was: “If the Iranian government pursues a responsible path, it will be welcomed once more among then community of nations, and the Iranian people will have greater opportunities to prosper.”
But the vast bulk of the message condemned the regime’s “electronic curtain.” The offer of dialogue just got a passing mention.
“Increasingly,” he said, “the Iranian people are denied the basic freedom to access the information that they want. Instead, the Iranian government jams satellite signals to shut down television and radio broadcasts. It censors the Internet to control what the Iranian people can see and say. The regime monitors computers and cell phones for the sole purpose of protecting its own power. And in recent weeks, Internet restrictions have become so severe that Iranians cannot communicate freely with their loved ones within Iran, or beyond its borders. Technologies that should empower citizens are being used to repress them.”
Obama said, “Because of the actions of the Iranian regime, an electronic curtain has fallen around Iran—a barrier that stops the free flow of information and ideas into the country, and denies the rest of the world the benefit of interacting with the Iranian people, who have so much to offer.”
The president said, “Over the last year, we have learned once more that suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. The Iranian people are the heirs to a great and ancient civilization. Like people everywhere, they have the universal right to think and speak for themselves.
“The Iranian government has a responsibility to respect these rights, just as it has a responsibility to meet its obligations with regard to its nuclear program. Let me say again that if the Iranian government pursues a responsible path, it will be welcomed once more among the community of nations, and the Iranian people will have greater opportunities to prosper.”