After The Death Of Demonstrators Is It Time Now For Barack Obama To Call For The Resignation Of Ahmadinejad?
June 27th, 2009Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the sixth and current President of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The recent election results most probably were very fraudulent.
Should president Barack Obama boldly ask for new elections under international monitors supervision.
I do not think Obama should shoulder the weight of this solo. The United Nations should, with the use of Member Nations make a joint effort if anything is to be done at all. We did not interviene when the students and others rose up in China demanding Democrocy and the Chinese military was used to gun them down killing many.
“The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 culminating in the Tiananmen Square massacre (referred to in China as the June Fourth Incident, ostensibly to avoid confusion with two prior Tiananmen Square protests) were a series of demonstrations in and near Tiananmen Square in Beijing in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) beginning on 14 April. Led mainly by students and intellectuals, the protests occurred in a year that saw the collapse of a number of communist governments around the world.
The protests were sparked by the death of a pro-market, pro-democracy, and anti-corruption official, Hu Yaobang, whom protesters wanted to mourn. By the eve of Hu’s funeral, 1,000,000 people had gathered on the Tiananmen square. The protests lacked a unified cause or leadership; participants included disillusioned Communist Party members and Trotskyists as well as free market reformers, who were generally against the government’s authoritarianism and voiced calls for economic change[1][2] and democratic reform[2] within the structure of the government. The demonstrations centered on Tiananmen Square, in Beijing, but large-scale protests also occurred in cities throughout China, including Shanghai, which remained peaceful throughout the protests.
The movement lasted seven weeks, from Hu’s death on 15 April until tanks cleared Tiananmen Square on 4 June. In Beijing, the resulting military response to the protesters by the PRC government left many civilians dead or severely injured. The number of deaths is not known and many different estimates exist.[3][4] There were reports that 2,500 people were dead and 7,000 – 10,000 people were wounded according to the Red Cross.[4] [3]
Following the violence, the government conducted widespread arrests to suppress protesters and their supporters, cracked down on other protests around China, banned the foreign press from the country and strictly controlled coverage of the events in the PRC press. Members of the Party who had publicly sympathized with the protesters were purged, with several high-ranking members placed under house arrest, such as General Secretary Zhao Ziyang. The violent suppression of the Tiananmen Square protest caused widespread international condemnation of the PRC government.[2]”
My prayers are with them and I hope they are successful.
I noticed no one seems to say anything about what happened in China. Could it be because Bush Senior was the President then?
Our country has NO RIGHT to interfere in the sovereignty of another country. President Obama was doing EXACTLY THE RIGHT THING when he took a neutral stance on the election outcome. Iran is a theocracy (which is what Bush/Cheney tried to install here), with a facade of democracy. The demonstrations were entirely initiated by the Iranian people and should have been left that way. But no…republican right-wingers here in the U.S. staged a camera grab, playing “king of the hill” one-upsmanship, and spoke in favor of the demonstrators, foolishly and arrogantly playing right into the Ayatollah’s hands. If all Americans had remained wisely neutral, as was our President, the Ayatollah would have no way to BLAME the U.S. or connect us to the demonstrations. This would have put pressure on him to listen to the voice of his people. Instead, the Republicans who grabbed camera time were cited by the Ayatollah (”American statesmen”) to blame the U.S. for the uprising, thus diminishing the impact of the demonstrators, giving the Ahmadinejad supporters reason for shouting “Death to America” and stirring up hatred of the U.S., and causing the violence (which could now be justified due to “American statesmen” interfering in the election). We should just butt out and let this sovereign nation handle its own elections, or run the risk of re-alienating the 2 billion Muslims who are in the world and forever blocking any hope for diplomacy with whichever leader is chosen in Iran.
Should Iran have called for the resignation of George Bush in 2000 or 2004? How much weight would have have carried? We would have laughed at him. Achmed’s presidency has now become a mockery because of the fraudulent election as well as the world now knowing the strong anti-Achmed movement against him. He will no longer be able to convince the world that the people of Iran hate democracy and the US.
Again, you have to realize the *strong* anti-US opinions in that region. For the US President to start calling for this or demanding that, the end result can very well be stiffer opposition. Or “emboldening the enemy” in Bush-era parlance.
There are times when you have to let people fight their own good fight.
NO! he has no voice as to what goes on in Iran! If HE did, why not all the other Head’s State all over the world have the same privelege!!? Obama should be working on putting America back on it’s feet, instead of interferring in someone elses’s business!
How is that even remotely within his right to do something like that?
The US President can’t just demand that the President of another sovereign country step down and that the country hold new elections.
Their election has been way more peaceful than the elections in Afganistan and Iraq, where we are in control.
What is wrong with anyone who thinks it’s America’s job to police every problem in the world. I really am getting sick of it.
If we do …. were considered BAD
If we don’t … were considered BAD
WORLD take care of your own, and if you mess with us … well do something
What ,you think Obama is a Bush war monger, The USA needs to mind it’s own business and tend to our own problems, Kinda hard to fix the world when we are digging out from under 8 years of the destructive Bush Regime
No, its not his responsibility to tell them how to run their elections. I’m glad to see a President who doesn’t feel the need to run other countries for once.
When this all started Obama couldn’t wait to take credit for the demonstrations because of his speech . Now that things are out of hand he doesn’t want any thing to do with it.
I don’t remember the leaders of Iran calling for a new election when Dubya moved into the White House after his fraudulent victory in 2000. It is not our business.
Definitely not, it is not the U.S.’s responsibility, period.
No, not his call. But he should back up the freedom fighters. This is just another example of where he is leading us. We can’t let that happen.
Duh however if Obama is cool with the likes of Chavez and Castro then we already know hes cool with A-Jad
I think Obama is doing the right thing. Let Iran deal with Iran. No more wars for oil!
Too little, too late.
He should have done that on day 1.