Ahmadinejad says Obama is as mean as Bush

NY Times:

As Iran’s embattled opposition leader renewed a call for protests against the disputed presidential elections, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad assailed President Obama on Thursday, telling him to stop interfering in Iran’s affairs and accusing him of striking the same hostile tone as his predecessor, George W. Bush.

The sharp words from the Iranian leader offered no prospect of eased tensions between Washington and Tehran at a time of continued confrontation over issues — apart from the elections — such as Iran’s nuclear program and its support for Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza which the United States call terrorist organizations.

Mr. Ahmadinejad’s remarks, quoted on the semi-official Fars news agency, came as news reports suggested that more than a third of Iran’s 290 Parliament members had snubbed a victory party for him Wednesday night and as opposition figures said 70 academics had been arrested after meeting with the main opposition leader, Mir Hussein Moussavi.

On his Web site Thursday, Mr. Moussavi said he was coming under pressure to withdraw his challenge to the election, which he says was stolen. Another opposition candidate, the third-place Mohsen Rezai, who won far fewer votes than Mr. Moussavi and was regarded as the most hard-line of the opposition candidates, withdrew complaints about electoral irregularities on Wednesday.

Mr. Moussavi, who has not been seen in public for a week, said on his Web site Kalemeh that there were “recent pressures on me aimed at withdrawing” his challenge to the vote. He complained that his “access to people is completely restricted,” The Associated Press reported.

Reuters also quoted him as rejecting the government’s crackdown. “I insist on the nation’s constitutional right to protest against the election result and its aftermath,” he said, complaining about the closure in recent days of an opposition newspaper and the arrest of those who worked here. “The illegal confrontation with the media opens the way for foreign interference,” he said.

As the authorities have moved against Mr. Moussavi’s followers, there have been mounting fears among them that the opposition leader is himself in danger of being detained — a move that could deepen the confrontation.

On Wednesday, the official Iranian news agency reported that intelligence and security agents in Tehran concluded that a Moussavi campaign office was used for “illegal gatherings, the promotion of unrest, and efforts to undermine the country’s security,” leading to speculation that Mr. Moussavi could be arrested. The news agency reported that “the plotters have been arrested.”

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Iran is a regime so fragile it cannot tolerate dissent or opposition forces. The repression is needed to save the totalitarian character of a regime with few inhibitions. Events are also showing how Obama's world view before his election was naive in the extreme.

President Bush was never the cause of the problems the US has with the Iranian regime, nor was his position on talks with the Iranians the problem. The problems was always the religious bigots in Iran who have been making war against eh US for 30 years. Obama never had any hope of talking them out of that position no matter how much he thinks they would benefit for a change of policy.