It was bad enough for President Bush to be mailed a lecture on religiously ethical behavior from the loose-cannon president of Iran. So it must have been worse when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hit the mark.Not according to the Iranians.
Among the presumably rhetorical questions the Iranian leader posed to Bush were several the average American might also ask, such as, "Is there no better way to interact with the rest of the world?"
The notion of first-strike pre-emptive war, the abuses at Abu Ghraib, "rendition" of captives for third-country interrogation and the jailing without charges of hundreds of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay may have many Americans wondering, as Ahmadinejad alleges, if the United States has failed to live up to its own stated values.
Ahmadinejad's letter clearly was meant for domestic consumption, to boost his status in Islam and among young people in his country. And perhaps the initial White House dismissal of the letter was for domestic consumption as well.
The antics and wild-eyed pronouncements of the source notwithstanding, this was the first official communication between Iranian and U.S. heads of state since 1979. Considering the fact that those two heads of state are currently at loggerheads -- if not crossed swords -- over Iran's nuclear policy, it might be a place from which to begin a more substantive dialogue.
As abhorrent as the notion of Iran with nuclear weaponry may be, so is the notion of the United States moving to prevent it with military force.Tina will like this one.
If Bush slams the door, it's likely to stay shut.
Tags: Ahmadinejad, Bush, myopia, Iran, doors
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