After signing the historic nuclear disarmament treaty with Russia, President Obama pushed back in an interview with ABC News, against critics who say his new nuclear weapons stance is too soft and leaves the United States vulnerable to attack. Go to ABC News.

(Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama said in an interview aired on Friday that there is no guarantee sanctions will change Iran’s behavior but he believes steady international pressure could alter Tehran’s nuclear calculations over time. Go to Reuters.

But even as Obama has sought to convey an image of a deliberate leader preoccupied with the battle’s human toll, he has used military power at least as aggressively as his Republican predecessor did during the waning years of his administration. In his first year in office, Obama has set in motion plans to triple the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan; expanded operations against U.S. enemies in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen; and, in one early instance of his willingness to use deadly force, authorized Special Forces snipers to kill three Somali pirates holding an American hostage. Go to Washington Post.

President Obama speaks about Iran and condemns how the government has used violence and tyranny to suppress and kill its own people in order to silence their voices of discontent.

When, back in October, the Nobel Prize Committee announced that U.S. President Barack Obama was their 2009 laureate, the president responded that he was ’surprised and deeply humbled’ by the decision to bestow the prize on him, despite having accomplished little, so far, in the pursuit of peace. Calling it “a call to action to confront the common challenges of the 21st century,” Mr. Obama went on to say that “I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many transformative figures that have been honored by this prize.”

One of the transformative figures that precede him on the laureates’ roster has been the victim of an unprecedented outrage. The 2003 Nobel Prize laureate and Iran’s foremost human rights advocate, Shirin Ebadi, was recently robbed of her medal, alongside several other prizes (including the French Legion d’honneur) by order of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court. The Islamic Republic of Iran raided her husband’s bank safe and seized all their valuables. Her bank account was also frozen and her pension suspended. The regime claims she owes $410,000 in unpaid taxes—but this is clearly a baseless allegation and another brazen attempt by Tehran to silence one of its most outspoken and effective critics. Her human rights center in Tehran was shut down recently and three of her colleagues have been arrested. She still has her personal freedom—but only because she has not returned to Iran yet.

The president’s engagement strategy with the Islamic Republic has so far yielded little progress on Iran’s nuclear program, but offered much cover to Iran’s regime. Clearly, internal repression is not Mr. Obama’s fault—but his premature award and his pledge to use it as an encouragement to future worthy endeavours offer him an opportunity, after past equivocations, to let Iranians know where he truly stands on the critical issue of their freedom. In Oslo, as the president accepts the award, he should donate his medal to Ms. Ebadi and invite her to the White House for the hand-over. Go to WSJ.

…But the attempt by leaders of the Green movement to weaken Ahmadinejad by linking him to the West might soon be overtaken by the actual grassroots opposition. Throughout Iran on Nov. 4, protesters chanted, “Obama! Obama! You’re either with them or with us!” If the Iranian people increasingly link their struggle for democracy with Obama’s global message of hope, it will make the American president’s balancing act that much more difficult. With post-election unrest entering its fifth month with no resolution in sight, Obama might soon be forced to pick sides between an Iranian regime that is widely viewed as illegitimate, and its people. Go to original article.

Members of the Green movement opposed to Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad voiced a clear demand to U.S. President Barack Obama this week.  Thousands protesting in Tehran streets on the 30th anniversary of the U.S. Embassy takeover on November 4 called on Obama to choose sides with either the Iranian government, or their struggle against that government, which they don’t consider legitimate.

“Obama, Obama — either with us, or with them!” chanted opposition members as they returned to the streets to protest.

Amir, a Tehran-based journalist and supporter of the opposition, tells RFE/RL the chant is a reaction to what he describes as the United States’ “overinclination” to strike a deal with the Iranian government over the ongoing nuclear crisis, while disregarding the opposition movement.  The deal, which Iran has rejected, was intended to quell Western concerns over the nature of Iran’s nuclear-enrichment activities. But the international community’s dealings with the Iranian government has left opposition members worried that their effort to expose the government as illegitimate is being undermined.

Go to Radio Free Europe.

IND:  Dr. Arash Hejazi, the physician who was at Neda Agha-Soltan’s side when she died, writes an open letter to President Obama.

…Mr. President, the Persian Gulf has been called the Persian Gulf [since] Daryus the Great and Herodotus in the fifth century BC; by Claudius Ptolemaues in the second century BC and by Quintus Curticus Rufus in the first century AD, and its official name is still the ‘Persian Gulf’. The United Nations has issued two editorial directives in which the states have been asked to only use “Persian Gulf” as the official and standard geographical designation for the body of water.
The implication of Neda in your speech was heart-warming for the Iranian Nation; however, when you omit the word ‘Persian’ from the Persian Gulf, you are stepping on the dreams of Neda and a nation that have nothing left but their dignity and their dreams. See More.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad left Tehran yesterday for New York as thousands of Iranians residing in the United States and Canada headed to New York City to protest Ahmadinejad’s visit and announce to the world that he is not the Iranian people’s legitimate president. 

A source close to the Iranian interests section explained to Rooz that the Iranian delegation was having problems finding accommodation in New York: “The initial plan was to hold Mr. Ahmadinejad’s press conference at his hotel, but due to some problems the conference will apparently take place at a United Nations conference room.” Ahmadinejad is also facing problems organizing his annual reception in New York.

Prominent Iranian photographer, Reza Deghati, has announced the staging of a group art work in front of the United Nations building, whereby one thousand participants will simultaneously carry posters depicting Neda, the symbol of the Iranian protests. 

Meanwhile, the New York Times reported that American officials are taking every precaution to avoid a face-to-face encounter between Barack Obama and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.  Go to Rooz Online.

Iranian reporters may not cross certain red lines. They cannot insult the Supreme Leader, question the official version of Islam, or express doubts about the country’s nuclear program. And, according to Masih Alinejad, a thirty-three-year-old reporter for Iran Labor News Agency and a columnist for the reformist newspaper Etemad-e Melli, since the 1979 revolution Iranian journalists have been banned from interviewing American officials. Go to New Yorker.

In the affairs of states, lessons are often learned too late or too well. Faced with unexpected crises and unwelcome demands for prompt decision-making, governments think by analogy. And they are invariably keen to demonstrate that they have learned from their–or, more conveniently, their predecessors’–mistakes. Go to New Republic.

The news that Dennis Ross, long time State Department strategist and peace processor, is being bounced as special envoy to Iran comes from an article by Barak Ravid in the reliable (at least on these matters) Ha’aretz. The story seems to assume that Ross was declared persona non grata by Tehran either because he was a Jew or because he believes that Iran should not be permitted to acquire nuclear weapons. Go to New Republic.