EU-DIGEST

Watching Obama from Tehran

Iranian President Ahmadinejad has great admiration for his own fortune-telling capabilities. For years, he has been making all kinds of predictions. Among his most famous are the destruction of Israel and the end of the “U.S. empire.” In March 2008, he made another prediction. “They would not allow Obama to become the U.S. president,” declared the Iranian president confidently in an interview with the Spanish newspaper El Pais. This new failure in his clairvoyance has probably disappointed the president. Nevertheless, he took the time to congratulate the man he thought would never become president by saying, “Tehran welcomes basic and fair changes in U.S. policies and conducts.” He added what is obviously his idea of helpful advice: ”I hope you will prefer real public interests and justice to the never-ending demands of a selfish minority and seize the opportunity to serve people so that you will be remembered with high esteem.”

Despite this message, the conservative hard-line camp in Iran is worried about the overwhelming enthusiasm and support for the U.S. that Obama’s election has created around the world. A popular American president who talks about peace and wants to negotiate with Iran would take away their justification for leading the anti-American front in the Middle East. The most intriguing reaction to Obama’s victory in Iran was reported by the Saudi-based Al Arabiya. In a report, this news outlet said that some Iranian officials had interpreted Obama’s election as as a sign of the arrival of the Mahdi. This is because Obama’s first name, Barack, means blessing and his second name, Hussein, is the name of the third Shiite imam who Iranians revere. The Saudi channel refused to reveal the name of the Iranian website on which its reports were based. Note EU-Digest: According to the Muslims al-Mahdi is "the rightly-guided one" who, based on Islamic Hadiths (traditions), will come before the end of time to make the entire world Muslim. Over the last 1400 years numerous claimants to the mantle of the Mahdi have arisen in both Shi`i and Sunni circles.

Labels: Ahmadinejad, Barack Obama, Iran, US

Ahmadinejad welcomed heartily in Iraq - US humiliated - by Mark Mackinnon

It's a damning indication of how poorly things have gone for the United States during its five-year misadventure in Iraq that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad can drive in broad daylight though this war-ravaged city and spend the night at the presidential palace, but George W. Bush can't. Mr. Ahmadinejad was greeted with lavish ceremony yesterday as he became the first Iranian President to visit Baghdad, a trip some said reflected Iran's great and growing power in Iraq and how severely the U.S. effort to remake Iraq into a Western-friendly democracy has gone awry.Apparently ignoring repeated U.S. charges that Iran is destabilizing his country, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani smiled broadly as he greeted Mr. Ahmadinejad outside his palace. Hailing a new era in ties between their states, the two men clasped hands and exchanged traditional kisses on the cheeks before walking together down a red carpet to review an honour guard as a military band played the two national anthems.

Unlike Mr. Bush's cloak-and-dagger visits here - fly-in trips to heavily guarded U.S. military bases that only last a few hours, often with no advance notice given to even the Iraqi government - Mr. Ahmadinejad's schedule was announced days earlier. He spent last night at Mr. Talabani's palace, across the Tigris River from the fortified Green Zone that houses the massive new U.S. embassy.

Labels: Ahmadinejad, Iran, Iraq, US