A Necessary Correction
The explanation or correction offered by the spokesperson for Iran’s foreign ministry that the Iranian government has taken an independent posture regarding the recent events in the Caucuses (i.e. Georgia), and the denials of Iranian authorities that the country has sided with Russia in its dispute with Georgia, contains both good and bad news.
The good news is that the spokesperson understands the importance of acting quickly to correct an impression before it is too late. Otherwise it would not be clear what would the confrontation between the Iranian cat and the Russian bear would lead to. Just as it is not clear that if the Iranian government had taken a few more steps, what other unwanted requests it would have to heed to, taking the country into some further unknown direction.
But the bad news is that reason for the explanation and correction that was provided was not what it should have been.
The explanation of the spokesperson was so choreographed as if the world press or analysts opposing the government had said something that had not been calculated and thought through which now needed an explanation or a correction. This as we know was not the case. When one looks at last week’s major headlines of government and pro-government newspapers such as Kayhan, and more importantly when one listens to the remarks that the president himself made on Monday and others made during his presence at the Shanghai gathering, it becomes clear that the domestic and international commentators had actually been right.
The cartoon that the Daily Telegraph, a British right-wing newspaper, published showing a bear whose one claw was holding oil pipelines – showing Russia’s hold on portions of the international gas and oil connections around the world – while the other was giving Iran a gift, which was nothing but Russian missiles, was exactly what the headline of the Iranian right-wing newspaper Resalat had for its readers: “Iran Acquires Most Advanced Missiles”, or Kayhan’s headline on Sunday [even though it is a quote from Western sources] which claimed that the Georgian crises had removed the possibility of a George Bush military attack against Iran. So commentators and analysts who had said that Iran was probably supportive of the Russian position were not off the mark.
Even if these and all other similar announcements made by Iran’s state-run national radio and television network last week are attributed to the media, one cannot ignore the remarks and the joyous laughter that Iran’s president demonstrated in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, when he talked of moves by Georgia’s uncalculated state authorities and attributed the crises in the Caucuses to foreign powers saying, “We have reports that the Zionists were very active in this issue.”
President Ahmadinejad’s remarks amid the condemnation of Russia’s military attack by almost all of Russia’s neighbors or at the least condemnation of the military attack by a powerful neighbor meant nothing but a show of support for the Kremlin. But it was now the job of the spokesperson of Iran’s foreign ministry to change the president’s words from “intervention of powers outside the region” and “foreign and non-regional intervention in the Georgian crises” to saying that “this crises was not in the interest of peace or stability for the region”, without naming the source of the intervention.
It is already late for the Islamic republic of Iran, after its thirty plus years of existence, and with the forced retirement of its diplomats, not to know that one cannot be successful at the international stage by making categorical statements or displaying uncalled for laughter.
What the president said at the Dushanbe meeting about the Caucasian crises, and the following correction or explanations that were offered, not only harmed Iran in a normal way, but they also damaged the country’s dignity and standing. The mere presence of Iran’s president at a meeting whose members are not too keen on accepting Iran as one of them, and clinging on to Putin and others are not things that bring respect for the country.
These childish initiatives, such as gathering three participating members who spoke Farsi and then portraying this as a major event in the Iranian press, are not only valueless, but also show our thirst for newspaper headlines, while instructing them how to deal with us.
In all honesty, what is the importance of being in the same room with Hamid Karzai - while everyone knows how he came to power in Afghanistan - and president Ahmadinejad’s counterpart in Tajikistan who loudly proclaims two points every time he comes across an Iranian, that first of all they do not need any clerics in their country, and secondly that they drink vodka there, and plenty of it, except to feed the Iranian state run news agencies?
The good news is that the spokesperson understands the importance of acting quickly to correct an impression before it is too late. Otherwise it would not be clear what would the confrontation between the Iranian cat and the Russian bear would lead to. Just as it is not clear that if the Iranian government had taken a few more steps, what other unwanted requests it would have to heed to, taking the country into some further unknown direction.
But the bad news is that reason for the explanation and correction that was provided was not what it should have been.
The explanation of the spokesperson was so choreographed as if the world press or analysts opposing the government had said something that had not been calculated and thought through which now needed an explanation or a correction. This as we know was not the case. When one looks at last week’s major headlines of government and pro-government newspapers such as Kayhan, and more importantly when one listens to the remarks that the president himself made on Monday and others made during his presence at the Shanghai gathering, it becomes clear that the domestic and international commentators had actually been right.
The cartoon that the Daily Telegraph, a British right-wing newspaper, published showing a bear whose one claw was holding oil pipelines – showing Russia’s hold on portions of the international gas and oil connections around the world – while the other was giving Iran a gift, which was nothing but Russian missiles, was exactly what the headline of the Iranian right-wing newspaper Resalat had for its readers: “Iran Acquires Most Advanced Missiles”, or Kayhan’s headline on Sunday [even though it is a quote from Western sources] which claimed that the Georgian crises had removed the possibility of a George Bush military attack against Iran. So commentators and analysts who had said that Iran was probably supportive of the Russian position were not off the mark.
Even if these and all other similar announcements made by Iran’s state-run national radio and television network last week are attributed to the media, one cannot ignore the remarks and the joyous laughter that Iran’s president demonstrated in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, when he talked of moves by Georgia’s uncalculated state authorities and attributed the crises in the Caucuses to foreign powers saying, “We have reports that the Zionists were very active in this issue.”
President Ahmadinejad’s remarks amid the condemnation of Russia’s military attack by almost all of Russia’s neighbors or at the least condemnation of the military attack by a powerful neighbor meant nothing but a show of support for the Kremlin. But it was now the job of the spokesperson of Iran’s foreign ministry to change the president’s words from “intervention of powers outside the region” and “foreign and non-regional intervention in the Georgian crises” to saying that “this crises was not in the interest of peace or stability for the region”, without naming the source of the intervention.
It is already late for the Islamic republic of Iran, after its thirty plus years of existence, and with the forced retirement of its diplomats, not to know that one cannot be successful at the international stage by making categorical statements or displaying uncalled for laughter.
What the president said at the Dushanbe meeting about the Caucasian crises, and the following correction or explanations that were offered, not only harmed Iran in a normal way, but they also damaged the country’s dignity and standing. The mere presence of Iran’s president at a meeting whose members are not too keen on accepting Iran as one of them, and clinging on to Putin and others are not things that bring respect for the country.
These childish initiatives, such as gathering three participating members who spoke Farsi and then portraying this as a major event in the Iranian press, are not only valueless, but also show our thirst for newspaper headlines, while instructing them how to deal with us.
In all honesty, what is the importance of being in the same room with Hamid Karzai - while everyone knows how he came to power in Afghanistan - and president Ahmadinejad’s counterpart in Tajikistan who loudly proclaims two points every time he comes across an Iranian, that first of all they do not need any clerics in their country, and secondly that they drink vodka there, and plenty of it, except to feed the Iranian state run news agencies?
posted by masoudbehnoud at 5:13 PM
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