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Iran’s President Sends Mr. Bush a Letter
Iranian President Mahmoud “Front Man” Ahmadinejad sent a letter to President George “LBJ” Bush earlier this week that had the chatterati agog. After a quarter of a century of not speaking, the letter represented hope for some, a great step forward in US-Iranian relations. However, content matters, and it looks like it wasn’t even a baby-step sideways.
Actually, this reminds one of Frank Zappa’s definition of rock journalism, “People who can’t write, interviewing people who can’t talk, for people who can’t read,” the middle grouping being superfluous in this case. Reuters got hold of a copy of this screed, and it appears to be 18-pages of drivel in Farsi.
However, there was one telling paragraph:
The people will scrutinize our presidencies. Did we manage to bring peace, security and prosperity for the people or insecurity and unemployment? Did we intend to establish justice, or just support special interest groups and, by forcing many people to live in poverty and hardship, made a few people rich and powerful?
The top 1% of the US population by wealth and income are, as Mr. Bush’s half-jokingly called them, his “base.” As for “Front Man,” revolutionary foundations (with a mullah at the head of each) run about 70% of the local economy. Any parallels are accidental, but quite real nonetheless.
What the letter didn’t contain is any proposal on Iranian nuclear research. The Iranian president, who has said Iran should wipe Israel off the map, merely whined that Iran was entitled to split atoms for peaceful purposes. Which led Secretary of State neo-Condoleeza Rice to say, “There’s nothing in here that would suggest that we’re on any different course than we were before we got the letter.”
It is long past time for the Iranian and American governments to talk. They may not agree on anything, and it may be that further conflict between the two is inevitable. However, it may take two new presidents of vastly greater political and personal maturity to take office before such could happen.
© Copyright 2006 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.
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