US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton seems to be enjoying sticking it to Tehran.
In a February 14 interview with Alhurra television, she said, “Well, I find it very ironic that Iran is trying to give lessons in democracy to anybody.”
Iran has accused the United States of trying to hijack the Egyptian people’s revolution. Clinton said, “Talk about a revolution that was hijacked! Iran is Exhibit A! What Iran is doing to its people, even as we speak, where there are protesters trying to have their voices heard in Iran who are being brutally suppressed by the Iranian security forces, I don’t think anyone in the Middle East–or, frankly, anyone in the world–would look to Iran as an example for them.”
That was a clear putdown of President Ahmadi-nejad’s popular line in his speeches that the entire world looks to Iran for guidance and inspiration.
Clinton’s comments were very much along the line used last week by Mehdi Karrubi in a Skype interview with The New York Times. Karrubi called the planned march a test for the Iranian regime. “If they are not going to allow their own people to protest, it goes against everything they are saying, and all they are doing to welcome the protests in Egypt is fake,” he said.
President Obama joined Clinton in tabbing Iran for acting contradictorily. In a news conference Tuesday, Obama said, “I find it ironic that you’ve got the Iranian regime pretending to celebrate what happened in Egypt, when in fact they have acted in direct contrast to what happened in Egypt by gunning down and beating people who were trying to express themselves peacefully in Iran.”_ Obama said, “American cannot ultimately dictate what happens inside of Iran.” But he expressed the hope that “we’re going to continue to see the people of Iran have the courage to be able to express their yearning for greater freedom and a more representative government.” Many took that as encouragement for more protests.
In a message he said was addressed to “friend and foe alike,” Obama said youth in the Middle East are demanding more opportunity and governments there “have got to get out of ahead of change; you can’t be behind the curve.”
Britain’s Foreign Secretary William Hague also commented Monday that the Iranian people had the right to express their views about their country, just like the Egyptians.
But perhaps the most disconcerting comment for Iran came from Turkish President Abdullah Gul, who was in Tehran on a state visit Monday while the protesters ran through the streets. At a news conference with Ahmadi-nejad, Gul warned, “When leaders and heads of countries do not pay attention to the demands of their nations, the people themselves take action to achieve their demands.” Gul was speaking generically about protest in the Middle East, not specifically about Iran.
Clinton also hailed the “courage” and “aspirations” of antigovernment protesters in Iran. Speaking to reporters during a visit to Congress, Clinton wished the opposition and “the brave people in the streets across cities in Iran the same opportunity that they saw their Egyptian counterparts seize in the last week.”
She pressed Tehran to follow Egypt’s example and “open up” its political system. “We support the universal human rights of the Iranian people,” she said. “They deserve to have the same rights that they saw being played out in Egypt and that are part of their own birthright.”
In Tehran, Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehman-Parast ignored Clinton’s sideswipes and stuck to the line the regime has followed for the past month—asserting that the Americans are trying to hijack the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia for their own purposes.
“We think that the shared desire of all the nations in the region is for the oppressive countries not to meddle—especially in the face of the violations and encroachments of the Zionist regime—and to cut off dependence from the US and the Zionist regimes and their supporters,” Mehman-Parast said.
In a statement Monday, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton called on the Iranian authorities to “fully respect and protect” the fundamental rights of their citizens, including freedom of expression and the right to assemble peacefully.