Ahmedinejad-Bush coming to your television
Looking at a rather smart Iran
I can only wonder who is making brisk business selling seats for the debate of the Century, two presidents of states that are arch-enemies squaring up against each other to discuss world affairs.
Having now proved to all that precision weapons are not that smart enough to disarm a guerrilla movement through their proxy in Lebanon and commissioned a heavy water reactor plant for Uranium enrichment, Iran is playing a rather deft diplomatic hand that is leaving the United States rather flat-footed.
I can pointedly note that Condoleezza Rice has not been able to set foot in the Middle East having brought forth through the serious birth pangs of a New Middle East a baby that would spit out milk that comes from America.
In fact, it is now left to Kofi Annan and the UN to clean up the debacle of that inconclusive 34-day war.
Let us talk to the world together
So, as we await Iran’s response to proposals of hypocrisy that aim to preclude Iran from the enrichment of Uranium on suspicion of dual-use intentions that could lead to a nuclear bomb; Dr Ahmedinejad who only the day before in a released statement about a letter to Angela Merkel sent in July about the Holocaust being a debilitating hoax to hamstring Germany, has now challenged Mr George Bush to a live television debate.
This challenge would obviously be dismissed as expected by the White House as a diversion from global concerns about Iran’s nuclear weapons.
But then I ask whose concerns exactly? Apart from those of the privileged nuclear world whose main actors surround Iran on all sides with wars and unrest whilst sponsoring opportunities for insurrection within Iran.
I think both presidents do have something to say and it is time that those presidents met and thrashed things out rather that employing megaphone diplomacy and railroading the UN into precarious resolutions that bring more trouble into an already troubled world.
It is also poignant to note that Laura Bush took the podium in New Orleans at the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina; Mr Bush’s ratings do not put him in any reckoning apart from accepting more faults and responsibility for the poor management of the Katrina aftermath.
North Korea however is probably busy planning another sabre-rattling missile fly-past over Japan as they beat their chests over having nuclear weapons and getting away with it all, the whole concept of nuclear deterrence has failed and new ideas with safeguards that even-handedly address global issues for security, energy and military might need to be debated on an equality and partnership forum.
It is now not enough for some countries to hijack the debate to meet ulterior ends whilst purporting to act on behalf of the world, those arguments which have been played back a broken vinyl record no more excite the resonance of ground-breaking, inspired or worthwhile points – rather they all look like ways of getting at that axis-of-evil.
It is now time for America to climb down from their high horse and begin to do the anathema, address the causes of terrorism, address the problems in the Middle East from the occupied lands to the support of tyrannical regimes and worst of all, maybe it is time to talk to Osama bin Laden, because this mad war on terror is doing nothing for peace on earth and goodwill to all men.
On a final note, would this war on our liberties, freedoms and privacy masquerading as the war on terror have any bite if we all knew that Osama bin Laden were dead?
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