View from Europe: Obama tough enough on Iran

If US president is too supportive of protests, he turns them into a 'Western plot,' say analysts.

By Robert Marquand
Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Paris

Republican critics are calling it "timidity." But the Obama administration's policy of "prudence" toward Iran's postelection protests gets high marks from Iranian specialists in Europe.

"If you support [presidential challenger Mir Hossein] Mousavi too openly, you destroy him," says Dominique Moisi, a leading French intellectual who has worked extensively on Middle East geopolitics. "So [if you are the American president] you support human rights, you don't support a particular person. It's a correct policy of prudence ... at this time."

But the absence of a strident US voice has brought some European leaders – especially Angela Merkel of Germany and France's Nicolas Sarkozy – to call for a review of Iran's June 19 elections. French officials called the Iranian ambassador, for the second time, asking for a release of protesters thrown in prison.

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