June 22nd 2009
Europe’s Conservatives Blast Iran
W
hile the liberal Barack Obama appears to continue to wrestle with his inner demons, struggling to find the right thing to say to confront Tehran’s totalitarians, conservative world leaders don’t seem to find it all that hard to say the right thing. Here’s Germany’s conservative Angela Merkel, via Voice of America:
Human rights and citizens’ rights are inseparable, and that is why Germany stands behind the people, and peaceful demonstrations in Iran, who want to make use of their freedom of speech and who want to gather peacefully. I, therefore, demand that Iran’s leaders allow peaceful demonstrations, allow free reporting of events, stop the use of violence against demonstrators and free imprisoned people.
It’s too bad the real voice of America, Barack Obama, can’t state it so clearly. French president Nicolas Sarkozy also knows how to string some good words together:
The extent of the fraud is proportional to the violent reaction. It is a tragedy, but it is not negative to have a real-opinion movement that tries to break its chains. If Ahmadinejad has really made progress since the last election and if he really represents two thirds of the electorate… why has this violence erupted?
Oh sure, talk like that gets the Tehraniacs’ turbans in a knot:
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki denounced Western criticism as “treacherous” and “unjust,” and accused foreign governments of fomenting unrest in his country.
Yeah, that’s right. We praised the election results before the ballots were counted. We saw to it that more votes were cast than there are potential voters. We saw to it that Ahmadinejad prevailed in the hometowns of his opponents, towns he had never even visited.
We’d better shut up or they might say bad things about us. Or, perhaps we could just respond ot ridiculous Iranian propaganda the way Sarkozy responded:
We don’t want to give the impression that foreigners … are getting involved in the elections in Iran … but when you have to condemn, you condemn.”
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