According to the left-wing Politico, taking a call from the leader of a terrorist regime responsible for killing who-knows-how-many American troops in Iraq, is a foreign policy “win” for President Obama. Of course, it really isn’t, and no one with half a brain believes it is. But Politico was probably desperate to put the words “win” and “foreign policy” and “Obama” in the same headline, so they are saying that taking a terrorist’s call is a “win.”
The Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald caught Brian Williams in an incredible rhetorical sleight-of-hand. In a likely effort to make it look as though Obama has prompted some kind of diplomatic breakthrough with the terrorist state of Iran, the “Nightly News” anchor actually opened his program Friday by telling his audience that Iran is “suddenly claiming they don’t want nuclear weapons!”
That would be great, if only it were anything close to the truth:
Yes, Iran’s claim that they don’t want nuclear weapons sure is “sudden” – if you pretend that virtually everything that they’ve said on that question for the past ten years does not exist. Here, for instance, is previous Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in an August 13, 2011, interview:
“Q: ‘Are you saying that at some point in the future you may want to acquire a nuclear deterrent, a nuclear weapon?’
“Ahmadinejad: ‘Never, never. We do not want nuclear weapons. We do not seek nuclear weapons. This is an inhumane weapon. Because of our beliefs we are against that. …
In fact, the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a 2005 religious edict banning the pursuit of nuclear weapons, and in January of this year, Iranian official Ramin Mehmanparast declared: “There is nothing higher than the exalted supreme leader’s fatwa to define the framework for our activities in the nuclear field.”
There is much more here.
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