The Iranian President Writes a Letter
09 May 2006 12:22 pm by Taylor Marsh
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PBUH? Forget “Praise be unto Him.” It's more like praise Dear Leader
and find a frickin' translator, people.
Ahmadinejad shouldn't have bothered writing the letter. It was a colossal waste of his time. It
wasn't even read.
This defies belief. It rattles through your brain like a pin ball, hitting
every bell. It is quite possibly the most unimaginable response to the situation
that can be conjured up.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice freely admits that she responded to President
Ahmadinejad's letter to the U.S. before it was translated into English.
I kid you not. Via liberalcatnip
(who found it here),
which Raw
Story found and blasted across the web. It's quite possibly the most categorically
ignorant statement yet to come out of Condi the Incompetent.
That is after the whopper that no one thought terrorists would fly planes into
buildings, when a study said that indeed could happen: “I don’t
think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane
and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the
Pentagon. That they would try to use an airplane as a missile? A hijacked airplane
as a missile? All of this reporting about hijacking was about traditional hijacking.”
Kristin Breitweiser's response was that Rice was either lying or she was incompetent.
Sounds like a twofer to me.
Then there was the statement about “mushroom clouds” that was made
up out of whole cloth. We all thought it couldn't get any worse after her admission
that the PDB was entitled Bin Laden to Attack in U.S. Oh, and let us
not forget what
she said after Hamas won the elections: “I've asked why nobody
saw it coming. It does say something about us not having a good enough pulse.”
How this woman got to be secretary of state is one of the ten wonders of the
political world.
But that she is so utterly wreckless with regard to Iran is flatly unacceptable.
Secretary Rice evidently didn't even bother having President Ahmadinejad's
letter translated before she responded. That's right, it wasn't important to
know what the Iranian president said, because Condi knew what to say before
she even read the contents.
Q I would love to know more about this letter from Ahmadinejad and what you
think he is doing in trying to approach the White House so publicly at this
time, and as a second issue, what you think the relationship is between him
and the Ayatollah and the other clerics.SECRETARY OF STATE CONDOLEEZZA RICE: Well, I won't try to judge the motivations
for the letter and I certainly don't know the ins and outs of internal Iranian
politics. We choose to treat the Iranian Government as the Iranian Government
and to respond accordingly.We've gotten the letter. We've not had a chance to do our own
translation and of course we'll do that, but an initial reading of the
letter would suggest that there is nothing in it that addresses the major
issues between the United States and the rest of the world and Iran on the
other hand. So not concrete issues on the nuclear side or on any
of the other issues that we face. It's very philosophical, I would say. But
again, I think we want to take a harder look at it, look at the actual translation
and get a better sense of what's there. But that's the initial reading.Q Well, could I just follow up asking we believe we've read that Angela Merkel
and other leaders think that it's time for talks between the U.S. and Iran.
Where do you stand on that now?SEC. RICE: I think what it's time for is for Iran to recognize that the international
community is on one side of this divide and that Iran is on the other side
of the divide. We have a presidential statement in the Security Council. We've
had Board of Governors resolutions. We're talking again in the Security Council
about the world's just demands that Iran return to the negotiations having
suspended its enrichment activities. And so that's really what needs to happen.
I don't think there's an absence of communication. That's not the problem.
The issue is: Is Iran prepared to actually take the step that it needs to
take? And we haven't had any indication that they're prepared to do that.
I guess if the Republicans think it's all right to send Karen Hughes to shore
up our relationship with the Arab world, a lily white Texas gal with a big 'ole
drawl. Well, I guess it's just peachy keen that our secretary of state reply
to the Iranian president without reading the correspondence to which she is
responding.
It's a real head shaker, people.
The Bush administration doesn't care what anyone in Iran has to say. As far
as the Bush policy towards that country is concerned, Iran's thoughts and statements
are irrelevant. I hope that's now clear to everyone who actually thought diplomacy
was ever on the table.
