American Conservatives Are Contradicting Themselves on Iran
On Wednesday in The Washington Post, Vice President Mike Pence contrasted his boss’s response to protests in Iran to President Obama’s response in 2009. Obama, he said, had “stayed silent” and “declined to stand with a proud people who sought to escape from under the heavy weight of a dictatorship.” But “under President Trump,” Pence crowed, “the United States is standing with them.”
This is a lie. Obama did not “stay silent.” He himself “appalled and outraged by the threats, beatings and imprisonments” of Iranian protesters. His administration also to ensure that Iranians could continue using it to organize their demonstrations. Obama did, however, temper his public comments, so as “to avoid the United States being, if the U.S. were “seen as meddling,” it could harm the protesters’ cause.
