The leader of the free world has now spoken on Iran (text via L.A. Times blog):

Remarks on Iran by President Obama during a White House photo op, June 15, 2009

Obviously all of us have been watching the news from Iran. And I want to start off by being very clear that it is up to Iranians to make decisions about who Iran's leaders will be; that we....

...respect Iranian sovereignty and want to avoid the United States being the issue inside of Iran, which sometimes the United States can be a handy political football — or discussions with the United States.

Having said all that, I am deeply troubled by the violence that I've been seeing on television. I think that the democratic process — free speech, the ability of people to peacefully dissent — all those are universal values and need to be respected. And whenever I see violence perpetrated on people who are peacefully dissenting, and whenever the American people see that, I think they're, rightfully, troubled.

My understanding is, is that the Iranian government says that they are going to look into irregularities that have taken place. We weren't on the ground, we did not have observers there, we did not have international observers on hand, so I can't state definitively one way or another what happened with respect to the election.

But what I can say is that there appears to be a sense on the part of people who were so hopeful and so engaged and so committed to democracy who now feel betrayed. And I think it's important that, moving forward, whatever investigations take place are done in a way that is not resulting in bloodshed and is not resulting in people being stifled in expressing their views.

Now, with respect to the United States and our interactions with Iran, I've always believed that as odious as I consider some of President Ahmadinejad's statements, as deep as the differences that exist between the United States and Iran on a range of core issues, that the use of tough, hard-headed diplomacy — diplomacy with no illusions about Iran and the nature of the differences between our two countries — is critical when it comes to pursuing a core set of our national security interests, specifically, making sure that we are not seeing a nuclear arms race in the Middle East triggered by Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon; making sure that Iran is not exporting terrorist activity. Those are core interests not just to the United States but I think to a peaceful world in general.

We will continue to pursue a tough, direct dialogue between our two countries, and we'll see where it takes us. But even as we do so, I think it would be wrong for me to be silent about what we've seen on the television over the last few days.

And what I would say to those people who put so much hope and energy and optimism into the political process, I would say to them that the world is watching and inspired by their participation, regardless of what the ultimate outcome of the election was. And they should know that the world is watching.

And particularly to the youth of Iran, I want them to know that we in the United States do not want to make any decisions for the Iranians, but we do believe that the Iranian people and their voices should be heard and respected.

I am struggling against a feeling of utter disgust. I recognize that there are times in diplomacy when one has to hide one's real feelings and to mince one's words about evil. And I realize that it is remotely possible that this is one of those times.

Yet this is a president who mormally loves the bully pulpit. And Obama's statements so far are about as restrained as it is possible for a president to utter without a gun actually being held to his head. One might perhaps understand a statement this mushy if Iran were America's closest political or military ally in the world. But it's not.

Note that even now Obama is not willing to denounce Ahmadinejad. All he is willing to say is "as odious as I consider some of President Ahmadinejad's statements." Obama chooses his words carefully. He doesn't call Ahminejad odious, nor does he call Ahmadinejad's core beliefs odious (after all, sometimes people say loose things that don't express their core beliefs). Nor does he say that Ahmadinejad's statements ARE odious, just that Obama personally "considers" them odious.

Obama is using the same Protestant ethic that he used with Rev. Wright and many others: Love the sinner, Hate the sin. Yet Obama seems to be uncomfortable with concepts like sin or evil. In this case, Obama's version appears to be more like: Love the man others consider to be a sinner, dispassionately (but genuinely) disapprove of what Obama personally considers to be odious.

Will we really get so much in return for our national cravenness as to justify prostrating our country before unelected or corruptly elected Iranian leaders?

Or has Obama already worked out a deal behind closed doors with Iran for them to end their nuclear program or to control their clients in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon? Given his recent ousting of his envoy to Iran, I highly doubt it.