Iranian Human Rights Activist Not Exactly Against Congressional Resolution, But …

Hadi Ghaemi of the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran said he has a hard time taking a strong stance one way or the other about the Berman-Pence Iran resolution currently being debated on the House floor. But it’s wading awfully close into a “political act” for his taste “The text is not objectionable,” Ghaemi told me. “But it will be seen as a political act” by the Iranian regime.

It’s “a very, very difficult bind that we’re in right now,” Ghaemi said. His organization has called for the invalidation of the election, and he told me on Saturday that the United States shouldn’t play a leading role in the international response to the ongoing Iranian uprising. “We do want to generate international support along the lines of the resolution, but we do not want to give an excuse to the Iranian government and leadership, just as the Iranian leader said today” that the Iranian opposition movement is foreign-backed. “It’s very hard to tell people not to support people” in the opposition, but he said that he wishes that the Congress’ call could have been “done much more multilaterally.”

“It’s not politically smart, but morally it’s the right thing to do,” Ghaemi concluded about the resolution — which, as I type, the House is voting on. Sorry, the vote is imminent; my procedural mistake.

Update: Resolution passes, 405-1. The holdout: Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.)

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