With protests worsening in Iran over the weekend, many are wondering if the United States should step in already and help.

President Obama has only made comments about protests instead of taking any action. According to the BBC, he said:

I am deeply troubled by the violence that I’ve been seeing on television. I think that the democratic process, free speech, the ability for folks to peacefully dissent, all those are universal values and need to be respected.

Obama has also explained why he does not want to take action in an interview with CBS’ The Early Show last week according to an Associated Press article:

The last thing that I want to do is to have the United States be a foil for those forces inside Iran who would love nothing better than to make this an argument about the United States. We shouldn’t be playing into that.

But those statements were made before police began attacking protesters with tear gas and shooting live bullets in the air over the weekend. The death toll also rose sharply. A total of 13 protesters were killed on Saturday according to Iranian State Media reports on Sunday bringing the death toll to 20 since the protests began, according to a Times Online article.

There’s even been a video posted on YouTube of a woman getting shot during the protests.

Despite the growing violence, Iranian leadership doesn’t want any help.

According to Fox News, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned the United States and Britain yesterday to stop meddling in Iran’s internal affairs. He said:

Definitely by hasty remarks you will not be placed in the circle of friendship with the Iranian nation. Therefore I advise you to correct your interfering stances

They (Western countries) want to portray as small the great and powerful position that has been created for the Iranian nation inside and outside after the recent election, by which of course they made a mistake and they showed they still do not know the Iranian nation.Definitely recent events will add to the Islamic Republic of Iran’s greatness and might.

Should the United States disregard the comments made by Iranian leadership and interfere anyway for the sake of protestors? How much worse do the protests need to get for the United States to have a duty to interfere? What could be a consequence of interfering? And if we should interfere, how should we do it?