ran Requests Direct Talks on Nuclear Program By Karl Vick and Dafna Linzer Washington Post Foreign Service Wednesday, May 24, 2006; A01 TEHRAN, May 23 -- Iran has followed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's recent letter to President Bush with explicit requests for direct talks on its nuclear program, according to U.S. officials, Iranian analysts and foreign diplomats. The eagerness for talks demonstrates a profound change in Iran's political orthodoxy, emphatically erasing a taboo against contact with Washington that has both defined and confined Tehran's public foreign policy for more than a quarter-century, they said. Though the Tehran government in the past has routinely jailed its citizens on charges of contact with the country it calls the "Great Satan," Ahmadinejad's May 8 letter was implicitly endorsed by Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and lavished with praise by perhaps the most conservative ayatollah in the theocratic government. "You know, two months ago nobody would believe that Mr. Khamenei and Mr. Ahmadinejad together would be trying to get George W. Bush to begin negotiations," said Saeed Laylaz, a former government official and prominent analyst in Tehran. "This is a sign of changing strategy. They realize the situation is dangerous and they should not waste time, that they should reach out."
Didn't answer the poll because I'm asking, do I trust anything the Bush administration/CIA/NSA slips into the media about Iran? GWB seems just as hellbent on the rapture and apocalypse as Ahmadinejad.
I don't know what Iran's strategy or intentions are. But one thing I know: the people in charge in Iran are a hell of a lot smarter than the people running the U.S.A. And that's kind of spooky!
The United States keeps the nuclear secrets in a nice secure little packet. Iran is waiting for either a Clinton, or perhaps any democrat to win the whitehouse... At which point said president will run the secret pack down to kinkos and zerox off a copy for the Iranians. Bill did it for China and was able to save money by using double sided copies.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daronspicher @ May 28 2006, 02:06 PM) [snapback]262117[/snapback]</div> Whatever you've been smoking, you could make a lot of money selling it on the street. That's gotta be some powerful stuff.
