THE SPINE NOVEMBER 15, 2007
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I pointed out a few days ago that the State Department had frozen anintelligent program to strengthen the Iranian opposition. This, as ithappens, when that opposition is feeling its oats again. Or rather itsgroats.
Yesterday's FT reports that Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah AliKhameini is under enormous pressure to squelch Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and hisnuclear designs. (The FT has a different form of spelling than most of us for the Iranianpresident. It's Ahmadi-Nejad. More authentic, don't you think?)
Perfect timing, for Ms. Rice. Maybe, to compensate for the dropping of theIran project, she can get the Annapolis attendees to agree on something, onanything.
2 comments
Well, this encouragingly suggests that there indeed are different camps in Iran - if the report is true.
If Khamenei is the good guy, that's pretty terrible. Nevertheless, if Iranians bear to live under such people, perhaps the US should not interfere with them doing so (coldly, with no collaboration and no business), provided the ayatollahs have enough sense to not go nuclear.
- sleepyavl
November 16, 2007 at 2:02am
Our "intelligent" program was seen by actual Iranian reformers as the kiss of death, and themselves asked that it be discontinued. "Support" from the US is often ham-fisted and stupid, and in the opinion of the real experts, Iranian reformers, does more harm than good by allowing the regime to smear them as traitorous dupes of the CIA.
- Robert Powell
November 18, 2007 at 4:16am