Tuesday
December 26, 2000
Wishful thinking
Here we go again. Mr. Amirahmadi's recent article, "The
time is now", with its predictions of an imminent thawing out
of the frozen relations between Iran and America, reminds me of the famous
quip "Denial is not just a river in Egypt."
Certain Iranian scholars in the American academia who have apparently
seen Mr. Khatami's face in the moon, have started anew. Attempts to portray
the state of things in a manner which has no basis in reality.
It is indeed a state of de ja vu when one hears the same predictions
that were floating around twelve years ago when Mr. Rafsanjani was elected
president. Nothing happened then, and nothing is going to happen now.
Mr. Khatami has publicly stated that he is powerless in the face of
the mounting pressures exerted on the reformist movement by the well entrenched
conservatives.
During the last Conference of Islamic Nations, certain members of his
entourage asked the foreign media to pray for the embattled president as
he seems to be going down fast.
Chants of "death to America" reverberated in the streets of
Tehran and other cities as recently as December 23 during the Jerusalem
Day demonstrations.
Relations between Iran and two of her major neighbors, Turkey and Pakistan
are the worst they have been in years. The state of affairs with Iraq and
Afghanistan doesn't need mentioning.
Amidst all these developments, to profess that things are rosy and that
utopia is at hand, is nothing but wishful thinking.
Shahriar Zahedi
Links
