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Another unarmed protester shot dead in Iran

The exact date this footage was filmed is disputed. What it depicts is not: another innocent Iranian has been shot dead, this time through the head, while protesting Iran’s rigged presidential election. 



Although President Obama has not yet officially dropped his policy of engaging with Iran, it is difficult to see how such a policy can still be justified. Iran has already committed widespread atrocities against its own people, and it appears this repression and violence will escalate. As Payam Akhavan, a professor of international law at McGill University, notes today in the Ottawa Citizen, such actions constitute crimes against humanity, and the Iranian leaders responsible for them deserve to face justice, as did Slobodan Milosevic and as will, one hopes, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. 

This isn’t to say that Obama’s strategy of extending a hand to Iran was foolish, only that it has failed. Iran will not unclench its fist. Obama needs to recognize this and reconsider his options.