Salmiya

The realities in international chess-playing Iran are analyzed today by Bernard Avishai and Reza Aslan for the Washington Post . While the notorious Bush Administration seems to be less willing in its last days to launch an attack on nuclear facilities in Iran, Israel still tackles the pros and cons. The arguments again and again circulate around the Iranian President and his unacceptable rhetoric. But that wiping-off-the-map ado has long been debunked as an intentionally wrong translation of a president’s not really diplomatic show-off who is not really the leader of the country. As Avishai and Aslan correctly state, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who alone commands Iran’s military and dictates foreign policy, has adopted a much softer tone with regard to nuclear negotiations with the West. Through his Vice President Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie, a close confidant of the President, the US was described recently as “one of the best nations in the world”. “Today, Iran is frien...