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President Barack Obama Tuesday staked out his toughest stance yet on Iran, condemning the government crackdown and bemoaning a "heartbreaking" video of a woman bleeding to death on the streets.
The president however warned that while bearing witness to the courage of demonstrators defying brutality, he had a duty to ensure his words were not twisted and used as a tool of repression by the Tehran government.
"I strongly condemn these unjust actions, and I join with the American people in mourning each and every innocent life that is lost," Obama said a White House news conference.
"I have made it clear that the United States respects the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and is not at all interfering in Iran's affairs," Obama said.
"But we must also bear witness to the courage and dignity of the Iranian people, and to a remarkable opening within Iranian society," he said.
Obama was asked specifically about graphic footage of the death of Neda Agha-Soltan, a bystander apparently shot in the chest who died on the street, which has shot around the Internet as a symbol of the post-election uprising.
"It's heartbreaking, and I think that anybody who sees it knows that there's something fundamentally unjust about that.
"I'm not hinting. I think that when a young woman gets shot on the street when she gets out of her car, that's a problem."
Obama also said there were "significant questions" about hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's disputed re-election but said he was waiting to see how the turmoil "plays itself out" for its impact of his offer of talks with the arch US foe.
The president has been accused of being timid and too slow to embrace the protests, by some Republicans in Congress, including his former 2008 election foe John McCain.
But he hit back: "only I'm the president of the United States ... in the hothouse of Washington, there may be all kinds of stuff going back and forth in terms of Republican critics versus the administration.
"That's not what is relevant to the Iranian people," Obama said.
"I know everybody here is on a 24-hour news cycle. I'm not."
Obama has pursued a carefully calibrated position towards Iran, balancing sympathy with protestors with a desire not to be seen "meddling" in the affairs of an arch-foe Washington suspects of developing nuclear weapons.
On Tuesday, he complained some of his circumspect words had already been willfully misinterpreted in Iran.
"They've got some of the comments that I've made being mistranslated in Iran, suggesting that I'm telling rioters to go out and riot some more.
"There are reports suggesting that the CIA is behind all this -- all of which is patently false but it gives you a sense of the narrative that the Iranian government would love to play into."
With pundits predicting Obama's political honeymoon will soon cede to a tough slog to enact key reforms like healthcare and financial regulation, Obama was also looking for a swift jolt of political momentum.
He predicted US unemployment would likely climb above 10 percent, as the country battles its worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s, but said a new economic stimulus package was "not yet" needed.
The president also offered his full support for legislation on climate change which the US Congress is prepared to put ahead to a vote.
And he said that if lawmakers did not embrace his call for sweeping health reform, including a government component, every American would soon end up with worse health coverage.
"Reform is not a luxury, it is a necessity," he said.
The president, who has sharply reversed course from his predecessor George W. Bush on global warming, said it was "extraordinarily important" to approve the bill requiring cuts in greenhouse gases despite an economic recession.
"At a time of great fiscal challenges, this legislation is paid for by the polluters who currently emit the dangerous carbon emissions that contaminate the water we drink and pollute the air we breathe," he said.
Tuesday's event was Obama's fourth solo White House news conference since taking office in January and his first such event since the end of April, when he went before the cameras to mark his symbolic first 100 days in office.
