Condi: Iranians Want Real Democracy

Condoleezza Rice appears to be preparing to push hard for real democracy in Iran. Here are a few of here recent statements heard over the Voice of America.

"the Middle East is changing. And those states that don't recognize that the Middle East is changing...[that] try to halt that change – states like Syria or Iran – need now to be, by the international community, isolated and condemned":

"You have a growing chorus of people in the Middle East who are expressing what I think we always knew, which is that you don't have to impose democracy. You impose tyranny. Democracy and the desire to be free [are] as natural as breathing."

Secretary of State Rice says that in Iran the "unelected few of mullahs" are "going in the opposite direction with a population that has clearly demonstrated that it wants a democratic future." Ms. Rice says, "What the international community needs to do…is to come alongside these people…and to say to them, 'We stand with you in the changes that you're trying to make.'"