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WB: Munich
Billmon:
The irony is that when America was in the best possible position to dictate a deal (an ultimatum, really) to the Iranians – after the fall of Bagdad three years ago – was also the point when the Cheney administration was least willing to even think about negotiations. Such is the price of hubris.
Those opportunities have all passed us by. Instead of a moderate reform president and a group of nervous ayatollahs anxious to cut a deal, we now have Ahmadinejad – and the dawn of what might well become an explicitly fascist regime in Iran, or at least a very close substitute for one.
Munich
Billmon, I get the comparison and is has merit, but you are disappointing me on correctness.
You say:
More importantly, key Revolutionary Guard commanders also have been turning up dead – like the dozen or so who died in a plane crash last December. Some are said to have been leading opponents of Ahmadinejad.
Any source for that? Couldn´t this have been more of a CIA whack job? Wasn´t the main guy for the nuke energy project on that plane? Just asking.
Billmon:
I don’t say this because of Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust denials or his public fantasies about Israel being wiped off the map. I certainly don’t dismiss those remarks.
Juan Cole says:
Unlike his predecessor, Mohammad Khatami, Ahmadinejad is a Holocaust denier. He went to an anti-Zionist conference and quoted Ayatollah Khomeini, saying that the “Occupation regime” must “vanish.” This statement about Israel does not necessarily imply violence. After all, Ariel Sharon made the occupation regime in the Gaza Strip vanish. The quote was translated in the international press, however, as a wish that “Israel be wiped off the map,” and this inaccurate translation has now become a tag line for all newspaper articles written about Iran in Western newspapers.
In another speech, Ahmadinejad argued that Germans rather than Palestinians should have suffered a loss of territory for the establishment of a Jewish state, if the Germans perpetrated the Holocaust. This argument is an old one in the Middle East, but it was immediately alleged that Ahmadinejad was advocating the shipping of Israelis to Europe. That was not what he said.
So you agree with Juan on the “holocaust denier” even though Juan kind of dissambles that statement by telling us that is a quote, not a statement. If a quote makes me something, …
Billmon says:
That earlier half of the Munich story – the hidden half – seems particularly critical to remember now, considering what insiders are now telling us about Iran’s pre-Ahmadinejad efforts to seek a diplomatic accommodation with the U.S.:
These efforts are not pre-Ahmadinejad efforts.
These attempts to talk are continuing. They have definitly not stopped with Ahmedinejad. They are ongoing today
Upcoming talks between Tehran and Washington on Iraq could, if they turn out to be successful, pave the way for talks on other issues, Expediency Council Chairman Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was quoted by Al-Hayat daily as saying, on Thursday.
Speaking exclusively with the London-based daily, Rafsanjani said that the Iran-U.S. talks would only focus on developments in Iraq. Al Hayat, on its website Thursday, further quoted Rafsanjani as speculating that “if Iran and the U.S. are satisfied with the outcome of their talks this would encourage them to discuss other issues.”
But the US just stopped any talking attempts on Iraq which could, see above, be the starting point for real talks:
With politicians deadlocked over who will be Iraq’s next prime minister, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said yesterday that planned talks with Iranian officials over Iraq-related issues would be delayed until a government is formed.
The German Foreign Minister has urged the U.S. publicly (others more privatly) to talk directly to Iran. He didn´t have to urge Iran.
Iran wants to talk – pre-during-and-post Ahmendinejan.
Don´t hang the guy just because he knows how to talk to make a his voters happy. He is a trained engineer who knows how to calculate.
And not failing for “inaccurate translation” that “become a tag line for all newspaper” would certainly help the analysis.
Posted by: b | Apr 14 2006 23:50 utc | 4
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