The rhetoric came after Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said demonstrators demanding a new presidential election must halt protests. He effectively ruled out any chance for a new vote in the election that the government has declared re-elected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

In a television interview taped Friday with CBS News' Harry Smith, Obama said he was very concerned by the "tenor and tone" of the supreme leader's comments.

He also said of Tehran that "how they approach and deal with people who are, through peaceful means, trying to be heard" will signal "what Iran is and is not."

Obama has been walking a difficult line since the election prompted Iranians to launch massive street protests. He has been reluctant to speak too harshly against the government because it would be seen as meddling in its internal affairs.

The congressional resolution, which served as the strongest response yet from the U.S. government, was a veiled criticism of Obama's handling of the situation.

"When Ronald Reagan went before the Brandenburg Gate, he did not say Mr. (Mikhail) Gorbachev, that wall is none of our business," said Rep. Mike Pence, a Republican, of President Reagan's famous exhortation to the Soviet leader to "tear down that wall."

The House resolution passed by an overwhelming 405-1 with Texas libertarian Rep. Ron Paul casting the lone opposing vote.

Sen. John McCain, Obama's former presidential rival, offered the Senate version, which passed by voice vote.

"The president and his administration should be at the forefront, calling on the Iranian regime to annul the fraudulent election, to restore the people's inalienable rights, and to allow peaceful protesters to voice their opinions," he wrote Friday in an editorial in The Arizona Republic.

Democrats, who are quick to voice their support for Israel anytime the Jewish state is seen as under siege, easily agreed to push through the mildly worded resolution.

Rep. Howard Berman, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and co-sponsor of the resolution, said "it is not for us to decide who should run Iran, much less determine the real winner of the June 12 election.

"But we must reaffirm our strong belief that the Iranian people have a fundamental right to express their views about the future of their country freely and without intimidation," added Berman, D-Calif.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs denied that Obama has failed to speak out fiercely enough and said the resolution "is very consistent" with the message Obama has been sending this week.

The Senate also passed on Friday a separate resolution by Sen. Ted Kaufman, a Democrat, that condemns restrictions on the press in Iran.

Congress _ particularly the 435-member House _ frequently weighs in on foreign policy matters, when a similar message from the State Department or the White House would be considered confrontational. Such resolutions have no practical effect other than to express the opinion of lawmakers and try to influence the administration in power at the time.

The legislative branch's say so in foreign affairs has receded over time, the residue of growing executive branch power.

Obama, whose goal is to engage Tehran in the hopes of blunting its perceived ambition of a nuclear weapon, has stayed mostly neutral on the election dispute, talking in parsed, measured terms, about the aspirations of the Iranian people to have their voices heard.

"I think the president has been clear on what he believes ," Gibbs said Friday. "And I will say, as the president has said, we're not going to be used as political foils and political footballs in a debate that is happening in Iran. There are many people in the leadership that would love us to get involved and would love to trot out the same old foils they've used for years. That's what they would love to do."

Nevertheless, he said that "obviously, we welcome the resolution."