Washington – The National Iranian American Council welcomes President Obama’s condemnation of human rights abuses by the Iranian government and its use of violence against peaceful protesters.
“I strongly condemn these unjust actions, and I join with the American people in mourning each and every innocent life that is lost,” President Barack Obama said today.
According to Trita Parsi, President of NIAC, “condemning violence is different from taking sides in Iran’s election dispute. People in Iran have told NIAC’s Iranian-American membership that they don’t want the US to get itself involved in the conflict, but they do want to see the government’s use of violence condemned.”
Calls by Republican lawmakers to explicitly side with a specific candidate or movement in Iran can be extremely harmful to that candidate or movement. “If our intention is to help, we have to first listen to the people in Iran rather than to pretend to speak for them without ever having had consulted with them,” Parsi added.
Yesterday, Parsi published an op-ed in the Christian Science Monitor pointing out that the Obama administration’s new posture towards Iran has enabled internal Iranian dynamics to bring about the current stand-off. “If America’s posture returns to that of the Bush administration, these indigenous forces for change may be quelled by the forces of fear and ultranationalism,” he wrote.
www.PaulFDavis.com – author of United States of Arrogance and worldwide speaker for peace & strategic foreign diplomacy
Paul interviewed Dr. Trita Parsi in Washington DC in January 2008 and was greatly impressed with the intellectual prowess and wisdom of the President of the National Iranian American Council. Parsi is also the author of “Treacherous Alliance” an insightful and powerful read on the relations of Israel, America and Iran.
The last thing the United States (a nation currently in debt $10 trillion dollars) needs is another war to fight considering it has not done too well in Afghanistan and Iraq. Had the Bush administration wisely gone into Pakistan early on as it should have and not redirected foolishly to Iraq, then U.S. troops might not be overburdened throughout the world …which in turn would cause them to be positioned to go into Iran if necessary. But with the current state of affairs (no thanks to the U.S. State Dept which seems to be a pawn on the chessboard for the CIA) and poor showing in international “theaters of war”, the U.S. military has already bitten off more than it can chew and Iran would be another costly mistake.
www.PaulFDavis.com – worldwide speaker and life-changing author of 18 books
