US vice president Joe Biden said today the Iranian government was "sowing the seeds of their own destruction" by clinging the power in the face of anti-government unrest.
Mr Biden said that the Iranian goverment "lost their moral credibility in their own country and around the region" when it used violence to put down recent protests.
"We are moving with the world including Russia and others to put sanctions on them," Mr Biden said. "I think that we've moved in the right direction in a measured way."
Iran said today it would soon hang nine more rioters over the unrest that erupted after the June presidential vote, and the leader of the opposition said such repression showed the 1979 Islamic revolution had failed.
"Nine others will be hanged soon. The nine, and the two who were hanged on Thursday, were surely arrested in the recent riots and had links to anti-revolutionary groups," said senior judiciary official Ebrahim Raisi, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.
The two men hanged last week were among a group of 11 people sentenced to death on charges including "waging war against God" and being members of armed groups.
Opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi, former prime minister, said today the repression showed the 1979 Islamic revolution that overthrew the US-backed Shah "had not achieved its goals".
"Filling the prisons and brutally killing protesters show that the root of . . . dictatorship remain from the monarchist era," he said on his Kalemeh website.
Influential cleric Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati praised the hangings, however, and urged the judiciary to execute more.
"The cruel cleric praises the judiciary for the hangings despite serious concerns over the methods used for getting confessions from detainees," Mr Mousavi said.
Eight people, including a nephew of Mr Mousavi, were killed in demonstrations during the Shia ritual of Ashura on December 27th and officials said over 1,000 were arrested.
"The 'green movement' will not abandon its peaceful fight . . . until people's rights are preserved," Mr Mousavi told the Kalemeh website. "Peaceful protests are Iranians' right."
Reuters