...born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad

Odd men out: While much of the world continues to hail the Obama win, one country has already leapt off the bandwagon. From the Jerusalem Post:

Iranian President Mahmoud 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 "US empire."

In March 2008, he made another prediction. "They would not allow Obama to become the US president," the Iranian president declared 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 US president by saying, "Teheran welcomes basic and fair changes in US 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 US 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. Furthermore, increased international support and credibility for the United States represents a more serious challenge to Iran, especially if the international community initiates new sanctions against Teheran. All this while oil prices are falling.

This is why efforts are already efforts under way in the Iranian press to tarnish Obama's image.

"A hawk in a dove's outfit" is the way the right-wing newspaper Keyhan described Obama in a front page article the day after his election. The article puts special emphasis on what it calls "Obama's praise of America's actions in Afghanistan and George Bush Sr.'s war in Iraq." It goes on to say, "Obama has never been peace-seeking."

Jomhuriye Eslami, another right-wing newspaper, has gone a step further. It headlined an editorial, "That Black Man Will Never Change US Policy." It went on to say that despite Obama's victory, US policy will remain the same because of "the structure of the American regime, which was established by capitalists, Zionists, and racists."

In other words, Obama's victory won't change the fact that, to Iran's leadership, America remains a racist state controlled by Israel…

Boy, was that a short honeymoon.  Looks like President Obama has his work cut out for him with these lunatics.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:09 | link | comments

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