Word: iranian
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...Missed Opportunity? As Nancy Gibbs put it, the city of new York prevented Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from laying a wreath at ground zero because New Yorkers were revolted by "the prospect of a tyrant's hand touching sacred ground" [Oct. 8]. Wouldn't it have been good diplomatic form to have allowed Ahmadinejad to lay a wreath in honor of all the 9/11 victims killed by Islamic fanatics? What kind of impact would his gesture have had on dogmatic, anti-Western Muslims? Maybe New Yorkers should have waved the flag of peace first and waited to see what might...
...showdown has elements of a perfect storm. The decline of U.S. fortunes in Iraq has been accompanied by a rise in Iranian assertiveness, which has intensified with Ahmadinejad's recent tough talk. Trumpeting Iran's nuclear ambitions as a nationalist cause, Ahmadinejad rejected the agreement by his moderate predecessor, Mohammed Khatami, to voluntarily suspend uranium-enrichment during three years of negotiations with European powers. Ahmadinejad abandoned Khatami's "dialogue of civilizations" for more confrontational rhetoric, calling for Israel to be "wiped off the map" and goading the West by denying the Holocaust. Iran enthusiastically backed Hizballah and Hamas in their...
...Ahmadinejad has repeatedly pooh-poohed the idea that the U.S. might take military action against Iran, to the anger and alarm of others in the Iranian leadership structure, who accuse him of downplaying a real danger. Ahmadinejad says that he considers the U.N.'s case against Iran's nuclear program closed, and dismisses U.N. sanctions as "piles of paper." Bragging that Iran's uranium-enrichment efforts have succeeded in achieving "the capacity for industrial-scale fuel cycle production," he also recently withdrew a compromise Iranian proposal that would base its enrichment activities in an international consortium that would allow Western...
...Ahmadinejad is now seeking a greater leadership role in nuclear decision-making, which is controlled by the regime's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Last week, Ahmadinejad accepted the resignation of Ali Larijani, the pragmatic conservative chief negotiator who is a bitter political rival to the President. Although all Iranian leaders defend their right to uranium-enrichment technology for purposes of producing nuclear energy, Larijani believes it is in Iran's national interests to reach an understanding with the West. But on at least two occasions, Ahmadinejad has publicly slapped down Larijani's conciliatory efforts...
...with U.S. rhetoric assuming a more confrontational tone in the past two weeks. On Oct. 17, Bush warned that "if Iran had a nuclear weapon, it would be a dangerous threat to world peace" that risked a third world war. Four days later, Vice President Dick Cheney warned, "The Iranian regime needs to know that if it stays on its present course, the international community is prepared to impose serious consequences... We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon...