US rescinds invites for Iran diplomats

WASHINGTON - An offer for Iranian envoys to attend U.S. embassy Fourth of July parties has been rescinded as the violent crackdown in Tehran continues, the White House said Wednesday.

"Given the events of the past many days, those invitations will no longer be extended," presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

Postelection protests and violence have rocked Iran since the contested re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The past 10 days in Iran have posed the strongest challenge to that nation's clerical rule since the system was established 30 years ago in the 1979 Islamic revolution.

President Barack Obama condemned the violence against protesters Tuesday and lent his strongest support yet to their accusations the hardline victory was a fraud.

No Iranian diplomat had accepted an invitation from U.S. diplomatic posts abroad to attend embassy Fourth of July parties, according to the State Department.

Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had authorized U.S. envoys abroad some weeks ago to invite Iranian diplomats to attend the annual celebration. Her authorization was required because Washington has no formal diplomatic relations with Iran.

Kelly said no Iranians have accepted, and he indicated that the U.S. saw little reason for them to, given the political crisis over their disputed presidential election.

Obama addressed the issue Tuesday at a press conference, saying "I think that we have said that if Iran chooses a path that abides by international norms and principles, then we are interested in healing some of the wounds of 30 years in terms of U.S.-Iranian relations. But that is a choice that the Iranians are going to have to make."

State Department spokesman Ian Kelley on Monday had also reaffirmed the invitation. "There's no thought to rescinding the invitations to Iranian diplomats," Kelly told reporters. "We have made a strategic decision to engage on a number of fronts with Iran. We tried many years of isolation, and we're pursuing a different path now."

The invitations were largely a symbolic gesture of goodwill and are not intended to take up policy matters.

The initiative though had its critics, Fox News commentator Glenn Beck said "Mr. President, you finally support the protesters today in Iran; how about un-inviting the guys who are beating those protesters? (If they are serving hot dogs, I hope they are serving Hebrew National.)"

Hot dogs have played a role in American foreign affairs before. The New York Times writes that in June 1939 the king and queen of England attended a picnic at President Franklin D. Roosevelt's estate in Hyde Park, N.Y. and partook in hot dogs (the queen used a fork and knife). Also in 1959 Nikita Khrushchev, the leader of the Soviet Union, tasted a hot dog in an Iowa meat packing plant after an agent checked it for radiation with a Geiger counter. And President Bill Clinton in 1999 hosted Prime Minister Ehud Barak of Israel and the Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat and served hot dogs.

The Associated Press and Frank Carnevale contributed to this report.