Former Pennsylvania Rick Santorum said President Obama essentially supported the results of the 2009 Iranian election, which many charged was rampent with fraud. Obama “..stood silently by, as thousands were killed on the streets. And did nothing. Did nothing. In fact, he tacitly supported the results of the election,” said Santorum at the Republican presidential debate in New Hampshire on Saturday night.
The assertion by Santorum is that Obama didn’t side with the Green Revolution by outwardly declaring the whole Iran election a sham. Of course, that probably wouldn’t be a good idea considering the already frayed diplomatic relationship, and the fact that the US and its allies want to peaceably prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
Barack Obama, in his first comments since the Iranian elections, said he was “deeply troubled” by the post-election violence. But the president held back from publicly criticising Iran, anxious to avoid accusations from Tehran of interference in internal elections, and derailing Washington’s diplomatic overtures to Tehran.
Obama, adopting a softly-softly approach, said it was up to Iran to determine its leaders. But he added: “I am deeply troubled by the violence that I’ve been seeing on television.”