By Khody Akhavi and Ali Gharib
WASHINGTON, Jun 23 2009 (IPS)

Facing a growing chorus of Republican criticism to speak out more forcefully on Iran’s disputed election results, the U.S. president made his harshest statement yet Tuesday, condemning Iran’s leadership for its violent crackdown on protesters.

Barack Obama told a White House news conference that the U.S. and international community was “appalled and outraged by the threats, beatings, and imprisonments over the past few days.”

Obama also called on Iran to accept the “universal right to assembly and free speech” if it wanted to be respected by the international community.

The president’s sharp language came on the same day Republicans in the U.S. Congress succeeded in adding a measure to a budget bill which would cut off U.S. loan guarantees for some companies doing business with Iran.

The amendment, introduced by Mark Kirk, a Republican member of the House of Representatives, made its way into a 2010 House appropriations bill which provides funding for the U.S. State Department and its foreign operations.

The efforts by Kirk, who is close to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the most influential organisation among pro-Israel lobby groups in Washington, could draw the Congress deeper into the debate over how to respond to post-election violence in Iran.

But how to engage Iran and under what terms appear to be issues the Obama administration wants debated exclusively within the White House and State Department.

On Tuesday, Obama maintained that his administration had been consistent on its statement with regards to Iran. But he also re-iterated that the U.S. did not want to be viewed as meddling in the country’s internal affairs.

Obama also called long-running allegations by the Iranian government of U.S. and foreign interference “patently false and absurd”.

“They are an obvious attempt to distract people from what is truly taking place within Iran’s borders,” he said.

“This tired strategy of using old tension to scapegoat other countries won’t work anymore in Iran. This is not about the United States and the West; this is about the people in Iran, and the future that they – and only they – will choose,” he added.

Obama’s comments came as Iran’s Guardian Council, which vets election results, rejected opposition demands Tuesday for a rerun of the presidential race. Iran’s official state news agency also quoted a senior judiciary official as saying a special court has been established to try detained protesters.

Iran also expelled two British diplomats, in the wake of harsh statements made by Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, at last week’s Friday prayers, where he described Britain’s government as “most evil”.

In response, the British expelled two Iranian diplomats. It has also announced it has frozen around one billion pounds (1.64 billion dollars) in Iranian government assets.

Khamenei also warned protesters of consequences should the protests continue in the capital and across the country. Eleven days of demonstrations and street violence in the wake of hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election at the polls has brought about unprecedented opposition and a very public split within the country’s clerical establishment.

There were reports that members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, Basij paramilitary group, and other security forces have been deployed in the streets and major squares of Tehran, in order to quell protests and stop any public gatherings.

On Tuesday, Obama described the events in Iran as “profound”, but said he would not discuss possible consequences for the country’s leadership because “we don’t know yet how this will play out.”

“I know everyone here is on the 24 hour news cycle,” he said to the reporters in the room. “I’m not.”

When asked whether this stronger language was in response to Republican leaders’ criticism that the president was being too timid, Obama said, “frankly, a lot of [Iranians] aren’t paying attention to what is being said on Capitol Hill.”

Obama’s approach to crisis has also drawn praise from some former George W. Bush administration officials.

“I believe that Obama has handled this crisis superbly,” said Nicholas Burns, who was undersecretary of state for political affairs under Bush.

“[Obama’s] statements became progressively stronger with events,” he said during a forum at the Washington-based Carnegie endowment for International Peace Tuesday, adding that criticism of Obama amounted to a “right-wing partisan attack”.

Obama said the U.S. would continue to advance its national security interests, and would not be used as a tool to be exploited by other countries.

But what happens in the Congress could potentially undermine Obama’s efforts to engage Iran over its disputed nuclear programme, which the U.S. and its allies suspect is aimed at producing weapons. Iran says its programme is for peaceful purposes.

The House of Representatives and Senate overwhelmingly adopted separate and symbolic resolutions last week supporting protesters in Iran. But the amendment introduced by Kirk, and which made its way into a House appropriations bill, would block the U.S. Export-Import Bank from extending loan guarantees to companies that supply refined petrol to Iran. “While the practical impact of this amendment is likely to be negligible, its approval now would give the government of Iran a new tool to use in its efforts to suppress dissent in Iran,” said Jim Fine, of the Friends Committee on National Legislation, a Washington- based peace lobby group. “The government of Iran will portray the amendment as punitive new sanctions aimed directly at the Iranian people and fresh evidence of hostile U.S. intent justifying tighter government control,” said Fine in a statement released Tuesday.

In a Congressional Quarterly report, Kirk was quoted as saying, “Our amendment is a go because AIPAC supports it,” referring to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which backs the measure.

But some analysts say the legislation, which is a long way from actually being implemented, only hurts the opposition movement in Tehran and bolsters Khamenei and his allies.

“What you’re doing is helping the forces that we actually oppose,” said Keith Weissman, an expert on Iranian-American affairs, who also used to work for AIPAC.

“Because of the unrest and the uncertainty, why do you want to make the job of the authorities and the regime easier,” he said.

“Dialogue and rapprochement are concepts that mean very little today,” he added.

Excerpt:

With the Iranian nuclear “threat” in the crosshairs, discussion of Palestinians or a Syrian-Israeli detente was virtually non-existent. But then again, one should not expect many overtures for peace when attending the annual policy conference for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

As more than 5,000 Jewish-American activists ascended Capitol Hill last week, the most common word circulating through panel discussions, daily briefings, and remarks made by high-level officials and presidential candidates was “security” – more accurately, Israel’s security.

And most of the tough talk, whether substantive or merely stylistic, was directed at a nuclear Iran and its presumed proxies – Lebanese Hezbollah, Palestinian Hamas, and even Syria.

The policy prescriptions, outlined in a draft proposal of AIPAC’s policy agenda, urge, among other things, that the U.S. “take all appropriate measures to halt Iran’s pursuit of nuclear and 152 other weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them.”

The language remains unsettling for many Democrats and war-weary U.S. citizens, who view it as a license for the President George W. Bush administration to launch a military attack on Iran.

While pre-emptive missile strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities may seem unappealing – indeed, AIPAC’s talking points omit the discomforting mention of military force – the safer bet has been placed on sanctions, an endorsement of already existing efforts to isolate Iran economically.

“We should privatise the sanctions against Iran by launching a worldwide divestment campaign,” said Senator John McCain, the Republican nominee for the presidency, in a speech to the AIPAC conference.

“Years ago, the moral clarity and conviction of civilised nations came together in a divestment campaign against South Africa helping to rid that nation of the evil of apartheid,” he said, without a trace of irony.

“In our day, we must use that same power and moral conviction against the regime in Iran and help to safeguard the people of Israel and the peace of the world.”

The final “action agenda” is a consensus document produced by the organisation’s executive committee, which includes representatives from major Jewish groups, as well as AIPAC board members.

The agenda also sets standards for Palestinian statehood that include an end to terrorism and recognition of Israel. Most controversially, it conditions an interim Palestinian state on “the change to a democratically elected Palestinian leadership untainted by terror,” something the Bush administration feels it has more or less accomplished by propping up Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

The agenda not only promotes Israel’s “qualitative military edge” in the region. AIPAC’s lobbying efforts also insure a quantitative edge, as evidenced by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s remarks to the audience earlier in the week about a recent House bill expediting “essential” military equipment to Israel.

“The bill begins the implementation of a new 10-year memorandum of understanding on U.S. security assistance to Israel and requires that Israel’s qualitative military edge be empirically assessed on an ongoing basis,” she said.

“The first installment of this increase, 170 million dollars, will be in the supplemental appropriation bill the House will consider soon, in fact, that we are considering now, so we can expedite this,” Pelosi said.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was met with a tepid response, but voiced his government’s support for renewed Syrian-Israeli peace talks, a relatively dramatic and recent development that was entirely ignored by AIPAC organisers.

“I know all too well the fears, suspicions and criticism which have always surrounded the Israeli-Syrian negotiations, and I do not take them lightly,” he said. “I can only assure you that any future agreement, if and when it is reached, will be backed by all the necessary security guarantees, and that I will never compromise on anything which could undermine Israel’s security or vital interests.”

Sen. Barack Obama’s appearance at the conference on Wednesday was the highlight.

College students roared and applauded, many crowding near the back of the aisles for the opportunity to see the historic candidate. He had finally clinched the Democratic presidential nomination, even if his adversary Hillary Clinton would not endorse him until Saturday.

But Obama was not pander-free; he gained fans among hardliners within the AIPAC leadership – and rousing applause from the crowd – for echoing one of the talking points of the lobby group’s policy agenda: “Jerusalem must remain the capital of Israel and must remain undivided.”

The statement was immediately rejected by Abbas, and Obama backtracked on the position the next day. The fate of Jerusalem forms part of the four big “final status” issues, which include the fate of Palestinian refugees, the borders of a Palestinian state, and the dismantling of Israeli settlements on the West Bank.

Palestinians – even those approved by the U.S. and Israeli governments as “partners in peace” – would reject any final settlement in which they do not share at least part of Jerusalem. Critics say that no peace or negotiations can truly be advanced if the U.S, the presumptive peace broker, pledges to keep the holy city undivided.

The issue is a thorny topic in Washington too. The U.S. Congress passed a law in 1995 describing the holy city as the “undivided” capital of Israel, a vote that preceded U.S. visits by then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin and Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert to celebrate the 3,000th anniversary of biblical King David’s declaration of Jerusalem as the capital of the Jews.

Successive presidents, including George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, have used their executive powers to keep the embassy in Tel Aviv and backed negotiations between Israel and Palestinians on the status of Jerusalem.

On the same day Obama made his pledge, President Bush announced that he was suspending a move of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem.

Outside the convention center, a fleet of passenger buses idled, ready to whisk the AIPAC faithful away to nearby Capitol Hill, where they planned to lobby 500 members of Congress for their cause.