*”At some level, in any society, there has to be consent,”* Obama told a White House press conference.
Obama also condemned the crackdown in Iran, where lawmakers have demanded the hanging of opposition leaders who called the protests that left two people dead.
Iranian MPs singled out Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, who had called for protests in Tehran on Monday in support of the Arab uprisings that quickly turned into anti-government demonstrations and ended in clashes.
*”People should be able to express their opinions and their grievances and seek a more responsive government,”* Obama said. *”What’s been different is the Iranian government’s response which is to shoot people and beat people and arrest people”*.
*”Real change in these societies is not going to happen because of terrorism. It’s not going to happen because you go around killing innocents. It’s going to happen because people come together and apply moral force to a situation,”* Obama said.
*”We have sent a strong message to our allies in the region saying let’s look at Egypt’s example, as opposed to Iran’s example.”*
Obama said that Egypt was moving in the right direction after the country’s military pledged to work toward political reforms and elections, days after protests toppled longtime leader Hosni Mubarak.
*”Egypt’s going to require help in building democratic institutions and also in strengthening the economy that’s taken a hit as a consequence of what happened,”* he said. *”But so far at least, we’re seeing the right signals coming out of Egypt.”*
Obama also praised the military leadership for reaffirming Egypt’s international treaties, including with US ally Israel.
*”Obviously there’s still a lot of work to be done in Egypt itself. What we’ve seen so far is positive.”*
Political unrest, meanwhile, has spread across the Middle East.
Thousands of Bahrainis demonstrated Tuesday in the capital Manama, where two protesters died. The rally called for regime change in the Gulf kingdom like that in Egypt and Tunisia.
And in the Yemeni capital Sanaa, pro-regime supporters armed with batons and stones waded into anti-government protesters trying to march on the presidential palace, sparking clashes dispersed by police.
Obama tried to answer critics who suggest his administration was caught flat-footed by the events in Egypt, arguing that he wanted to ensure that the United States did not become the story.
*”I think history will end up recording that at every juncture in the situation in Egypt that we were on the right side of history,”* Obama said
*”What we didn’t do was pretend that we could dictate the outcome in Egypt because we can’t,”* he said. *”So we were very mindful that it was important for this to remain an Egyptian event, that the United States did not become the issue.”*
But Obama insisted that, if anything, he was actually ahead of the curve.
*”If you look at my statements, I started talking about reform two weeks or two and a half weeks before Mr. Mubarak ultimately stepped down, and at each juncture, I think we calibrated it just about right.”*
*”I would suggest that part of the test is that what we ended up seeing was a peaceful transition, relatively little violence, and relatively little, if any, anti-American sentiment or anti-Israel sentiment or anti-Western sentiment.”*
