Obama Says ‘Justice’ Is Needed for Iranians

By HELENE COOPER

WASHINGTON — President Obama ratcheted up his language against Iran’s leadership on Saturday, in a statement that invoked the American civil rights movement as an analogy for what was unfolding on the streets of Tehran.

“Martin Luther King once said, ‘The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,’ ” Mr. Obama said in a statement released after security forces in the Iranian capital clashed repeatedly with protesters. “I believe that. The international community believes that. And right now, we are bearing witness to the Iranian people’s belief in that truth, and we will continue to bear witness.”

Mr. Obama’s remarks came after intense debate and multiple meetings all day Saturday at the White House, administration officials said, and reflected growing concern within the administration that the violence in Iran could continue to escalate.

Despite his forceful words, however, Mr. Obama is still resisting calls from conservatives and Republicans to harshly and publicly condemn the Iranian government and impose stiff sanctions on refined gas exports to Iran. In particular, the president’s use of the word “justice,” which White House officials have been debating all week, is a departure from the more measured tones he had struck earlier in the week. “The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching,” Mr. Obama said. “We mourn each and every innocent life that is lost. We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people.”

Mr. Obama said that the “universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights.”

White House officials were monitoring the events unfolding in Tehran throughout the day on Saturday, including in meetings in the president’s study next to the Oval Office. But they were hampered by the fact that the United States does not have an embassy in Tehran, or consulates in any Iranian cities, because the two countries do not have diplomatic relations.

In addition to intelligence reports, the White House also is relying on information from European and other allies with more resources in Iran, along with news reports.

In invoking Martin Luther King Jr. and the American civil rights movement, Mr. Obama moved toward adorning the protesters on the streets of Tehran with the mantle of America’s most intense movement for human rights and justice. Even as Mr. Obama’s statement was released, on Saturday afternoon Eastern time, the leader of Iran’s opposition, Mir Hussein Moussavi, announced to supporters that he was ready to take on that role, and its risks. “I am ready for martyrdom,” he told supporters at a street gathering in southern Tehran, as he called for more civil disobedience and an annulment of the announced result that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had been re-elected as president.

Mr. Obama did not comment on the disputed election results. But he did appear to take on a difficult balancing act, trying to strike a note of moral clarity while still shying away from demonizing Iran’s clerical leadership.

“As I said in Cairo, suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away,” Mr. Obama said. “The Iranian people will ultimately judge the actions of their own government.”

And he delivered a warning to the Iranian authorities: “If the Iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it must respect the dignity of its own people and govern through consent, not coercion.”