IRAN: War games are over ... now, let’s talk
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Just a day after the end of Iranian missile tests meant to scare away any potential Israeli or American attack on its nuclear facilities, a powerful Iranian cleric was all nicey-nice at Friday prayers about the continuing diplomatic negotiations over the country’s atomic research and production program.
‘Now it is high time for negotiation,’ Ayatollah Mohammad Emami Kashani, a member of the influential Expediency Council, told worshipers gathered for prayers in downtown Tehran. ‘Iran is ready for negotiation. Europe is ready for negotiation.’
He said the recent missile tests were meant to show Iranian strength, not hostility toward the West.
‘The reality is that you, the enemies of the Islamic Republic of Iran, ought to recognize the power of Iran,’ he told the faithful.
‘In the past 30 years we have never been a threat to any country,’ he said. ‘On the contrary, you invaded Afghanistan, Iraq under the pretext of fighting terrorism.... We have no intention to wage war. We have no plan for nuclear weapons.’
He had pointed words for the U.S. and Israel:
When you say ‘Iran is a threat,’ where is the threat? Your brain is mixed up. Your sentences are confused. We clearly have announced that we are brother to the all Islamic world. We have no war with the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy. But Israel is different. It is a usurper regime. If Israel attacks, we counterattack.
And he all but cursed the Bush administration:
Thank God all of you are at the end of your careers. You U.S. officials are running a smear campaign. You are liars, spreading lies. You must know that if you dare to transgress us, if you attack us, we will give you a lesson which you will not forget.
— Ramin Mostaghim in Tehran