Ryan says under Obama, Middle East looks like '1979 Tehran'

Paul Ryan delivered a blistering speech against President Obama on foreign policy Monday, saying because of the president's policies, the Middle East looks like Tehran during the mob protests on the U.S. embassy in 1979.

Ryan, speaking in Lima, Ohio, was referencing Nov. 4, 1979, when Islamic revolutionaries in Iran attacked the U.S. embassy and took more than 50 Americans hostage. Ryan said that Obama has failed to fulfill promises to bring peace to the Middle East.

"I mean, turn on the TV and it reminds you of 1979 Tehran but they're burning our flags in capitals all around the world. They're storming our embassies," Ryan said.

Romney and Ryan have both strongly criticized Obama over foreign policy in the aftermath of attacks at U.S. diplomatic sites in Egypt and Libya that resulted in four U.S. officials dead in Benghazi, Libya. Ryan continued to criticize Obama in comparing the 2012 embassy attacks to the 1979 attack during his speech.

---

More from The Hill:
• Lockheed Martin’s new CEO thrust into sequester debate
• Obama to condemn Libya violence as ‘assault’ on UN’s ideals
• Marines charged in 'desecration incident' of Taliban fighters
• Dems tally violent weather in push for climate action
• Lagarde: US must deal with ‘looming’ danger of fiscal cliff
• GOP takes aim at ‘skewed’ polls
• More than 50 members of Congress just say no to Twitter

---

"We've lost four of our diplomats. And what is the signal that our government is sending the rest of the world? We're being equivocal on our values, we're being slow to speak up for individual rights, for human rights, for democracy. We're seeing countries stifle freedom in Iran, in Russia, and all these other areas. And we're saying we're going to gut our military — that projects weakness."

In the same speech Ryan also attacked the president for recently saying in an interview with Univision that reform in Washington is difficult. Specifically he said that "the most important lesson I've learned is that you can't change Washington from the inside. You can only change it from the outside."

"Here's the killer, President Obama just the other day said on TV that 'I can't change Washington from the inside,'" Ryan said to boos from the crowd. "Why do we sent presidents to the White House in the first place? Isn't that why we send presidents to Washington? To change Washington?"

---