- The amateurish, jingoistic, arrogant
and ludicrous State of the Union speech has sent shockwaves reverberating
around the world.
-
- The position of the British Foreign Office,
regarding the speech, was made clear by a spokesperson, who declared that
"we do not believe about everything (the US says)." He added
that "We believe that in a long term, we can overcome disagreement
by talking to each otherî.
-
- "President Bushís comments
about Iran do not change British policy, which remains to engage with
the Iranian government and to improve relations with a view to building
a better understanding between our countries", he continued.
-
- Another Foreign Office spokesperson
declared to the Iranian news agency, IRNA, that "Britain certainly
has no wish to engage in any kind of confrontation."
-
- These comments come in the wake of the
"axis of evil" speech in which George W. Bush appears to have
got his geography wrong, naming Baghdad (predictably), Pyongyang (of course)
and Teheran as the three countries which supposedly had their weapons
of mass destruction pointing at the USA.
-
- Exactly why George Bush was allowed
to include Teheran in his speech, after all the co-operation that the
government of Iran has given to the USA in recent months, is the cause
of a huge question mark among practically all the governments, and population,
of the European Union.
-
- Iran's president Sayed Mohammad Khatami
denounced Bush's outburst as "intervening, warmongering, insulting,
a repetition of his past propagation, and worse than all, truly insulting
towards the Iranian nation."
-
- He continued: "What is of top importance
is that adopting such aggressive moods merely leads to further unity and
solidarity among the Iranian nation in their confrontation with those governments
whose appetite will never be saturated and are always intending to intervene
in othersí affairs."
-
- Furthermore, he declared that "Iran
is both a victim of terrorism and a victim of chemical weapons, which were
generously donated to our enemies by those who intended to uproot the
Islamic Revolution. Today, America insists on supporting the racist Zionist
regime that resorts to all sorts of crimes against the Palestinians that
are the most oppressed, most innocent nation in the world."
-
- Praising the USA as a 'great nation',
the Iranian President declared that this country has an important role
as a peace broker, while only too often its policies bring tyranny and
injustice, cloaked in a disguise of freedom and individual liberty.
-
- The State of the Union speech was a
monumental blunder, a gross miscalculation and a massive display of arrogance,
which basically served to take away any degree of sympathy, to counter
all feelings of commiseration and at a stroke, annul the outrage felt
by the international community for the United States in the aftermath of
September 11th.
-
- One wonders whether the President of
the United States of America had been eating pretzels again - they pack
a mighty punch, after all.
-
-
- PRAVDA.Ru
-
- http://english.pravda.ru/main/2002/02/03/26191.html
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