A commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) said on Saturday that U.S. President Barack Obama should distance himself from the Israeli government as a first step toward change, Iran's satellite Press TV website reported.

Brigadier General Mir-Faisal Baqerzadeh said the U.S. gives "blind support for Israel," calling on Obama "to understand the consequences of Israeli actions in the region."

"The 44th U.S. president cannot claim to be able to bring significant change in the ways and means of Washington unless he can end the jaundiced White House approach towards the Palestinians," said Baqerzadeh.

He criticized President Obama's silence on the Israeli assault on Gaza and said that his (Obama's) position "drew criticism, especially in the Muslim world...this is while the U.S. president had been quick to make statements about the Mumbai terrorist attacks and a series of other issues."

On Tuesday night shortly after Obama sworn in as the U.S. new president, Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki asked the new U.S. president to realize the emerging "new Middle East."

"The traditional ways of looking into Middle East issues would no longer work...and the U.S. administration really needed to hire a new team of Middle East experts that would help the American president make logical decisions on topics relating to the Middle East," Mottaki said.

The United States and its allies had accused Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian nuclear program.

Iran denies the charges and insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.

(Xinhua News Agency January 25, 2009)