Obama: AWOL in Iran crisis ~ By Tom Tancredo

Commentary from WorldNetDaily

By Tom Tancredo Posted: January 02, 2010 ~ 1:00 am Eastern © 2010 It is now abundantly and painfully clear that President Obama is clueless about America's national security interests in this dangerous world. Obama is playing golf in Hawaii as the Islamist regime in Tehran shoots protesters in the streets and admits it has beaten to death scores of other protesters taken to jail. Obama's silence in not voicing support for the protesters is deafening. Anyone who has watched events unfold in Iran over the past three months can see that the street protests have evolved from a protest against a stolen election to a wider protest against the regime itself. The protests are not only taking place in the capital but in major cities all across the country. The most recent protests featured banners and shouts aimed at America: "Obama, which side are you on?" is a chant heard often. Unfortunately, that's a good question. Since the revolution in 1979 that overthrew the pro-Western shah, Iran has pretended to be a democracy, but its "fundamentalist regime" slowly concentrated power in the hands of radical clerics. So, Iran now pretends to be a democracy, and the world pretends to believe it. Last October, the regime pretended to have a presidential election but overplayed its hand by stuffing the ballot boxes. In the last 27 years, over 120,000 citizens in Iran have been killed by the regime, executed after sham trials or simply shot or beaten to death in prison without benefit of a trial. The street protests are escalating because millions of Iranian citizens have decided they have no other recourse. The question is not, what do Iranians want? The question is, is the civilized world listening? Is Obama listening? Obama's silence over Iran's democratic protests is especially confounding after his rush to judgment in Honduras. After the Honduran Supreme Court and Congress ousted the president under a constitutional provision allowing that move, the U.S. State Department protested their action. In Honduras there was no reluctance to criticize a pro-American regime, but in Iran, the United States bends over backwards to maintain neutrality and keep "open channels" to the dictatorship run by the radical mullahs. Why this double standard? Obama's silence is not merely hypocritical, it is patently contrary to America's vital interests. READ FULL STORY >