Saturday, January 31st, 2009...11:58 pm
New Tehran ETF, Compliments of Obama
What are the odds of a causal relationship between Obama’s foreign agenda with Iran and Iran’s economic prosperity? Check out the chart from the WFE Focus newsletter and then read Rozen.
Laura Rozen presents a comprehensive and compelling case for what is going on behind the political curtain regarding U.S. and Iranian relations. Here are a few quotes from her article that got my attention:
“I do think that it is important for us to be willing to talk to Iran, to express very clearly where our differences are, but where there are potential avenues for progress,” Obama told Al Arabiya television in the first interview he granted since becoming president earlier this week. “And we will over the next several months be laying out our general framework and approach. And as I said during my inauguration speech, if countries like Iran are willing to unclench their fist, they will find an extended hand from us.”
Along with reports that the State Department is drafting a letter to the Iranian leadership and U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice’s comments this week that the United States will pursue direct diplomacy with Iran, the Obama administration is undertaking an intensive policy review toward Iran even as it gets its new team members into place.
“I am seeing actions that seem to be really quite different,” says Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council, a Washington group that promotes U.S. engagement with Iran. “Obama was not president for even 20 minutes when he said ‘mutual respect.’ That is an Iranian buzz word. No one in the Middle East uses that more than Iran.”
“By [Obama] speaking directly to the Iranian leadership and the Iranian people the way he has,” says Joseph Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, “and the way he may be answering Ahmadinejad’s letter, it presents his views unfiltered and it shows his respect for the Iranian nation. That’s very important.”
Isn’t this a lot like the chicken and the egg controversy? Which came first, the political bribe or money mongering politicians?
Song by Nelly seems fitting, esp. the line:
“oh why do i live this way?”
“(hey) (must be the money)”
Why do politicians live this way? Yep, must be the money.
