Obama defends policies on Iran, domestic issues

President Barack Obama says he is "appalled" by the violent crackdown on demonstrators in Iran and has called on Iranian leaders to respect the rule of law.

In a wide-ranging press conference at the White House on Tuesday, the president declined to criticize the election process itself but did complain about the Iranian regime's response to the post-election crisis.

Iranian leaders have already accused the West, including the BBC, Voice of America and the CIA of helping to sponsor the huge anti-government protests during the past week, but President Obama called the accusations "patently false" and said they were an "obvious attempt to distract people" in Iran. He said the "tired strategy of using old scapegoats won't work anymore, not about the United States."

The president seemed determined to communicate to the Arab world that he would let the Iranian people speak for themselves and cited his speech to Arabs in Cairo as an example in which he had encouraged autonomous democracy.

Obama also slammed Iran's leaders for censorship in the light of the protests. "No iron fist is strong enough to shut off the world," he said. What he called "powerful images and poignant words" were being communicated by cell phones and computers, he added.

Among those images, the president noted the "timeless dignity of tens of thousands of Iranians marching in silence" and the "searing image of a woman bleeding to death on the streets," a reference to a recent cell phone video broadcast on YouTube.

"Those who stand up for justice are always on the right side of history," the president said. He called on the government in Iran to respect the "universal right to assembly and free speech" and to "govern through consent and not coercion."

On domestic issues, the president also defended his proposals for new energy regulation, health care reform and a new financial regulatory authority to prevent future economic crises.

Obama prodded Congress to pass the energy bill he supports, calling it "historic legislation that will transform the way we produce and use energy in America" and promised that it would be "paid for by the polluters."

He called health care a "complicated issue" but said he is still "very optimistic" about the prospects for reform and insisted that any health care plan "must and will be paid for" and will not add to the federal deficit over the next decade.

The president also made news when he defended his decision to sign anti-smoking legislation this week, despite his own longtime smoking habit. President Obama admitted that he had "fallen off the wagon" from time to time, but pronounced that he was "95 percent cured" of his nicotine addiction.