US President Obama fires toughest criticism towards Tehran

• Iran regime resolute: No new election

Obama, speaking at a White House news conference, also for the first time appeared to suggest that his strategy of offering negotiations with longtime US foe Iran may depend on the end-game of the crisis.

"The United States and the international community have been appalled and outraged by the threats, the beatings, and imprisonments of the last few days," Obama said, stiffening his rhetoric on the crisis.

"I strongly condemn these unjust actions, and I join with the American people in mourning each and every innocent life that is lost."

Obama came to power in January offering dialogue with US foes, including Iran, which the previous Bush administration largely refused to engage.

"Were still waiting to see how it plays itself out," Obama said of the current crisis.

"My position coming into this office has been that the United States has core national security interests in making sure that Iran doesn’t possess a nuclear weapon and it stops exporting terrorism outside of its borders.

"What we’ve been seeing over the last several days, the last couple of weeks, obviously is not encouraging, in terms of the path that this regime may choose to take."

Obama insisted he was not interfering in Iranian affairs, as alleged by the Tehran government, but said he had to "bear witness to the courage and dignity of the Iranian people."

He 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 spread around the Internet as a symbol of the post-election uprising.

"Its heartbreaking, and I think that anybody who sees it knows that there’s something fundamentally unjust about that.
"I think that when a young woman gets shot on the street when she gets out of her car, that’s a problem."

Some Republicans, including Obama’s 2008 election rival John McCain, have accused the president of being timid and too slow to embrace the protests sparked by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s disputed win over Mir Hossein Mousavi.

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.

McCain said later in an interview with CNN that he agreed "there’s only one president" but defended his right to speak out.

"Many of us who have had long years of experience on these issues not only have the right to speak out, but we have the obligation to speak out on behalf of people who are being oppressed."

McCain accused Obama of not sticking up for American values.

"The president saying that we didn’t want to be perceived as meddling, is, frankly, not what Americas history is all about."

Earlier in the day, a key committee in the US House of Representatives voted to target the Islamic republics gasoline imports and its domestic energy sector by prohibiting the US Export-Import Bank from helping companies that export gasoline to Iran or support its production at home.

The State Department also said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton discussed the situation in Iran in telephone conversations with her French, British and German counterparts, but provided no details on the talks.

Britain and Iran have engaged in tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions since the crisis began, as much of Iran’s ire has been directed at London.

Britain, Germany and Italy have each warned their nationals against travelling to Iran, with London also pulling out the families of embassy staff.

• Iran regime resolute: No new election

Obama has pursued a carefully calibrated position towards Iran, balancing sympathy for protestors with a desire not to be seen "meddling" in the affairs of an arch-foe that Washington suspects of developing nuclear weapons.

Explaining his reluctance to delve into Tehran’s internal politics, Obama also complained that 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 be over, leaving only a tough slog to enact key reforms like healthcare and financial regulation, the president sought a swift jolt of momentum from the news conference.

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.