Reporting from Washington — The bedlam touched off by Iran's disputed presidential election could eventually transform the entire Middle East. But it has relegated President Obama to the status of an onlooker.
Many U.S. officials believe the eruption of anti-government protests could implant reforms within the Iranian regime that in turn could thaw tensions and ease hostilities across the region. Or, it could lead to a crackdown by increasingly panicked and insecure rulers who grow more dangerous as they react more harshly.
Either way, U.S. officials say their course is clear: To say little and do even less.
"It's not productive, given the history of the U.S.-Iranian relationship, to be seen as meddling," Obama said Tuesday.
Obama administration officials recognize an Iranian sensitivity to U.S. interference that dates back to 1953, when the CIA helped topple popular nationalist Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh. Today, both hard-liners and pro-reform Iranians remain deeply suspicious of American motives and moves.
U.S. officials said that means that if they now are seen allying with reformers, it will harm those groups in the public's eye, tarring them as American-backed.
And if Americans denounce Iran's incumbent president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it could fortify the anti-American leader and make things more difficult for Obama's long-promised diplomatic overture to Iran.
As a result, the administration has been trying to carefully calibrate its language in the four days since the election, showing it is standing up for democratic principles, yet keeping a careful distance from events.
Angering some U.S. conservatives, Obama has avoided charging election fraud or siding with the more moderate Iranian candidate, Mir-Hossein Mousavi. Obama said that he has "deep concerns" about the election and "stands strongly with the universal principle that people's voices should be heard and not suppressed." He hastened to add, however, that "how that plays out over the next several days and several weeks is something ultimately for the Iranian people to decide." By hedging his comments, Obama's approach doesn't match the principles of foreign policy he has laid out since taking office five months ago.
In his address to Muslims in Cairo last month, a speech watched closely around the world, Obama said it was important for world leaders to say in public what they say privately; yet he is pointedly guarding his public statements concerning the Iranian election.
He also promised to speak out candidly with foreign nations, something that he has decided he can't afford to do at the moment.
Obama's approach underscores differences with his predecessor, George W. Bush, who believed his administration should do all it could, whether aggressively supporting democratic opposition leaders or using military force, to spread American-style democracy.
By contrast, Obama's aides believe that in its capacity to bring democracy to unwilling countries the United States should be, to use one Bush phrase, a humble nation.
"The take-away from Iraq is that it is very, very difficult and extraordinarily expensive to try to impose an American-style approach on another country," said a senior administration official, discussing internal strategies on condition of anonymity. "If change is going to come, it'll come from within. We have to recognize our inherent limits."
paul.richter@latimes.com
