IRAN: Choice of Egypt a mistake, says scholar
This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.
Even as the Muslim world eagerly awaits President Obama’s address to them Thursday from Cairo, some say he’s already dropped the ball in his choice of venue.
At least one Iranian critic says Obama made a mistake by making his speech in Egypt, which has a peace deal with Israel and was widely criticized during the recent war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip for failing to do enough to support Palestinians.
‘I think that he probably made the worst possible choice to choose Egypt as a place to make a speech,’ said Mohammad Marandi (pictured), head of North American studies at Tehran University and an American-born U.S. citizen.
‘If you’re going to Indonesia, if you’re going to Bangladesh, if you had gone to Turkey, if you had gone to any country, it would have been better than going to Egypt,’ he said.
It’s not the country of Egypt itself that’s the problem. In fact, Marandi says he’s got tremendous respect for the people of Egypt.
‘The issue is that the Mubarak regime is completely discredited both in Egypt and among Muslims throughout the Middle East,’ he said. ‘When you’re speaking of his major speech where all of us in the Muslim world are supposed to sit down and listen and enjoy and feel that the world is going to change for the better, I think the very fact that it’s taking place in Egypt is going to cause it to lose almost all of its effect.’
Not all Iranians take as harsh a view.
Ali Khorram, a former Iranian ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva who is now based in Tehran, said he warmly welcomed the speech but hoped it would be followed by action.
‘I think this is the first element in the reconciliation between Muslim countries and the United States,’ he said.
Still, ‘Is it enough for normalization and reconciliation? It’s not enough.’
People and governments in the Middle East, even those staunchly pro-American governments in Cairo, Riyadh and Amman, want to see action, he said.
‘We need something in practice and the first indication should be in the case of Palestine and Israel,’ he said. ‘Even we don’t attach so great an importance to the question of Iraq. If Mr. Obama is able to make a change in his position toward Palestine-Israeli conflict, then it could be a good omen.’
But if he says something positive but in practice continues the same policies of the previous administration, people will say, ‘ ‘OK, it was just a lip service, nothing more than that.’ ‘
-- Borzou Daragahi in Tehran
Photo: Mohammad Marandi. Credit: Borzou Daragahi / Los Angeles Times