IRAN: Tehran carefully rooting for Obama
IRAN: Tehran carefully rooting for Obama
Is Iran gunning for a victory by presidential candidate Barack Obama?
Depends on whom you ask. But, yeah. It is.
Despite the official line that it won’t make any difference who wins the U.S. presidency (after all, they say, America is totally under the thumb of “Zionists”), Iranians are watching the U.S. elections closely and rooting for a victory by the Illinois senator, who has said he’s willing to agree to unconditional talks with Iran.
Not only is Obama’s middle name Hussein that of the prophet Mohammad’s grandson (revered as the saint of all saints by Iran’s majority Shiites) but the candidate’s foreign policy seems light years away from the saber-rattling of President Bush and Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee.
“For those worried about another war in the world, John McCain is not a suitable candidate to take office,” said an April 16 editorial in the moderate daily Seda-ye-Edalat:
He is tough and rigid not only towards Iran but also towards Russia and China. Many experts believe that his victory will be a message to Iran, Russia and China to either review their policies or get ready for confrontation.
Contrast that to what Iranian elites say about Obama.
“I should say, he is a phenomenon, based on what he has said so far,” Sadegh Kharazzi, a former Iranian diplomat squarely in the reformist camp now out of power, said. “Unless he is drawn into traditional Democratic Party ways, his election as a president will be welcomed in Iran.”
Wrote the conservative daily Hamshahri on May 7:
Obama has adopted the friendliest strategies regarding Iran, because he believes that America should change its policy in dealing with Tehran, while other candidates have more hostile policies.
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