Obama's Response Has Its Critics, Defenders:

Conservative columnist George Will, speaking Sunday on ABC's "This Week," dismissed the "foolish criticism" of Mr. Obama's position, noting that past U.S. efforts to urge uprisings, in Hungary against the Soviet Union and in Iraq against Saddam Hussein, led only to bitterness against and criticism of the U.S.

Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, also backed the White House's approach, saying Washington must continue to focus on Iran's nuclear program, not the street protests, even if that means direct negotiations with Tehran.

White House officials said those comments showed that conservatives were divided over how the president should respond to events in Iran.

Some Republicans called for further action. Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, ranking Republican on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said the U.S. and Europe need "to begin to deal" with the reality that Iran will soon be a nuclear-armed power. Policy has to shift from blocking its nuclear program to helping a more moderate regime take control of the nuclear program, he told "Fox News Sunday."

Write to Jonathan Weisman at jonathan.weisman@wsj.com

This is a cut and paste from the Wall Street Journal.

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Any attempt at regime change by the U.S. will backfire horribly and play right into the ruling Iranian government's hand.

Obama is following the precedent set by former President Bush, Sr. when the Soviet Union started to crumble with a very low key response. Most Iranian experts agree that Obama is taking the correct approach in this current crisis. This is one issue the GOP needs to back off on as it makes them appear to be criticizing just for the sake of criticizing.

I am in accord with mshadow and Charles on this issue for our direct intervention in other countries' affairs, especially one as volatile and anti-American as a good sized segment in Iran can do nothing but cause more enmity against us than there already is.

Focusing on the nuclear threat that Iran poses and voicing our concern for human rights violations seems the best course.

Nothing the President does will ever satisfy the GOP. Criticizing for the sake of criticizing is their m.o.
I have yet to see any positive suggestions on anything on the table.

This article, while interesting, is more a rant than anything else I think. At least tc1000 gave us a link to go to rather than post the entire article as a few others are wont do.

I haven't the will or wish to talk about every point of the opinions made but one thing said does encourage conversation.

President Obama was not cavalier in the least about the ideologies of other countries. To the contrary President Obama said that the people of other countries should not fear that America would invade them in an effort to change them into mirrored images of the western civilization. Looking at Iraq it seems it was the right thing to say.

Iran has citizens that want a change in the way they are governed. If those changes are to come about then it must be the citizens of Iran who are the cause. To support those citizens is the right thing to do.

Meet the Press was interesting this week.
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The first article did sound like quite a rant. And while essentially saying Obama is naive and cavalier, it offered no options.

I would agree that Obama's approach is the correct one. For reason noted by the second WSJ article, as well as the posts above. It really is time for us to stop trying to make other nations into mirror images of us. Hasn't work well in the past, why would it now?

Any change must come from the Iranians themselves.