June 24 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama used some of his strongest language yet to condemn Iran’s crackdown on protesters, reacting to the violent confrontations between the Iranian government and the opposition.

“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 at a White House news conference yesterday. “I strongly condemn these unjust actions.”

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei today said Iran won’t bow to pressure over the disputed June 12 presidential vote, according to state-run Press TV. Opposition candidates have said the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was rigged.

Obama said he’s waiting to see how the turmoil in Iran evolves before deciding how he might change his strategy of engaging the government there diplomatically to prevent the country from gaining a nuclear weapon, which he called a “core national security interest” of the U.S.

“We don’t know yet how this thing is going to play out,” he said. “It is not too late for the Iranian government to recognize that there is a peaceful path that will lead to stability and legitimacy and prosperity for the Iranian people.”

Demonstration Planned

Opposition supporters plan a demonstration outside Parliament in Tehran today in defiance of government orders to stay off the streets, Qatar-based Al Jazeera reported on its Web site. Any such event is “independent” and unconnected to defeated candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi’s campaign, according to a statement on his Web site.

Obama said Iran’s crackdown on the protests is “obviously not encouraging” for any diplomatic breakthrough.

He also said the U.S. and other nations aren’t interfering in Iran’s internal affairs.

The U.S., the U.K. and Israel have come in for the Iranian leadership’s most vehement accusations of meddling by other countries since the protests began. Interior Minister Sadegh Mahsouli said today that demonstrators involved in unrest were financed by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran, an opposition group, the state-run Iranian Students News Agency reported.

Iran, which hasn’t had diplomatic ties with the U.S. since 1980, will consider downgrading its relations with Britain, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said today, according to ISNA. Iran and the U.K. each expelled two of the other’s diplomats this week.

Foreigners Held

Iranian authorities are holding seven foreigners in connection with the protests, including some with British passports, Press TV cited the intelligence minister as saying.

Iran is holding hundreds of opposition activists, who risk torture, human rights groups said. Many are being held incommunicado, without access to their lawyers or families and without being formally charged, the New York-based Human Rights Watch and the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran said in e-mailed statements late yesterday.

The deputy head of Iran’s judiciary, Ebrahim Raeisi, said a special court will be set up to try the detained opposition supporters and teach “a lesson to others,” the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency reported yesterday.

Mousavi’s Wife

Zahra Rahnavard, Mousavi’s wife, demanded on his campaign Web site the quick release of those arrested during the protests. She was a major force in Mousavi’s campaign, the first time in the 30 years since the country’s Islamic Revolution that a candidate’s wife has had such a prominent role.

“Based on the constitution, gatherings and protests are accepted rights,” she said.

Another defeated presidential candidate, former Parliament Speaker Mehdi Karrubi, likened Ahmadinejad’s government to the Taliban in Afghanistan.

“You know well that those who support Ahmadinejad are those who promote a backward, Taliban version of Islam, something that is against the views of Imam Khomeini,” Karrubi said in an open letter to Ezzatollah Zarghami, head of Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting. The letter, which referred to the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, leader of the Islamic Revolution, was published yesterday on Karrubi’s Web site.

Mousavi’s campaign released a report yesterday detailing allegations of fraud and demanding a “truth commission.” Included were accusations that ballots were printed the day of the election without serial numbers, and that ballot boxes may already have held votes before arriving at polling stations.

Arrests at Newspaper

Armed, plainclothes forces arrested 25 employees of the Mousavi-owned Kalameh Sabz newspaper on June 22. Alireza Beheshti, the paper’s editor-in-chief, told the Farsi service of German broadcaster Deutsche-Welle that the forces said they had a judge’s warrant, though they didn’t show it. The newspaper has been banned from publishing since June 14.

Another defeated candidate, Mohsen Rezai, an ex-commander of the Revolutionary Guards, withdrew his complaint over the disputed election, IRNA reported.

In a letter to the Guardian Council, which oversees the country’s elections, Rezai said the turmoil in the country was more important than the election result, according to the report.

Harder Tone

While Obama and his aides said the administration’s stance hasn’t changed, Obama’s tone has hardened since the eruption of the most serious unrest in Iran since the Islamic revolution in 1979.

Obama said June 16 he had “deep concern” about violence, and then on June 20 he called on Iran to “stop all violent and unjust actions” against protesters.

The latest statement is “a bit of a stiffening, a bit of increased rhetoric,” said Steve Clemons, director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation, a policy research group in Washington.

Obama’s top political adviser said the president’s words reflect the evolution of events in Iran. “His rhetoric has changed as events have changed there,” David Axelrod said in an interview on CNN. “Obviously, the thing has escalated.”

The president dismissed allegations by Iranian authorities that the U.S. is instigating protests, adding that “we must also bear witness to the courage and the dignity of the Iranian people and to a remarkable opening within Iranian society.”

He brushed aside criticism from Republican lawmakers, who have been calling on him to take a stronger public stand. That debate isn’t of any consequence to the anti-government protesters, Obama said.

Capitol Hill

“What’s relevant to them right now is, are they going to have their voices heard,” he said. “A lot of them aren’t paying a lot of attention to what’s being said on Capitol Hill and probably aren’t spending a lot of time thinking about what’s being said here.”

Obama gave support to complaints of voting irregularities from backers of opposition candidates, including former Prime Minister Mousavi.

Obama said “significant questions” cloud the legitimacy of the election. “Ultimately, the most important thing for the Iranian government to consider is legitimacy in the eyes of its own people, not in the eyes of the United States.”

Iran’s Guardian Council yesterday ruled out an annulment of the election. Security forces responding to the protests over the election have fired water cannons, shot tear gas and used clubs to disperse crowds.

Obama said he has seen a video of Neda Agha Soltan, a protester who was shot in the chest and died on the streets of Tehran during a march on June 20.

“It’s heartbreaking,” Obama said. “And I think that anybody who sees it knows that there’s something fundamentally unjust about that.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Nicholas Johnston in Washington at njohnston3@bloomberg.net; Hans Nichols in Washington at hnichols2@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: June 24, 2009 06:23 EDT