One key opponent of the funding, who weighed in at meetings to block specific grant requests aimed at helping pro-democracy groups inside Iran, was Suzanne Maloney, who is now at the Brookings Institution.

Speaking at a Washington forum that the National Iranian-American Council sponsored Wednesday, Maloney applauded President Obama's do-nothing policy. The best thing we can do for Iranian democracy is sit back and let Iranians fight it out for themselves, she said, echoing the president's own words from a brief press statement the day before.

These programs reached a limited number of people in Iran and that would indicate that their effectiveness was limited.

When reporters asked White House spokesman Robert Gibbs on Thursday about the president's hands-off approach, Gibbs said there was no debate in the White House over how to address the events in Iran.

Everybody is on the same page. There's no difference of opinion.

There's no difference of opinion. I think the only thing I might take the only thing I would take some exception to is the notion that the president has been hands-off.

The next question from the press was about Father's Day.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reinforced the administration's hands-off policy in a statement to reporters on Wednesday.

It is for the Iranians to determine how they resolve this internal protest concerning the outcome of the recent election, she said.

Shout shout shout, noise noise noise. Six months of Obama policy and the reactionary ayatollahs are on the run.