Letters to the editor

Readers write on the relationship between the British and Americans, how the Chinese see Obama, and Iran.

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Today, however, President Obama is hugely popular throughout Britain. The crowds who gather to salute Mr. Obama when he visits London are vivid testimony to that fact.

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ALISTAIR BUDD

London

How the Chinese see Obama

Regarding Mark Eades' Oct. 26 opinion essay "The key to Obama's success in China: young people"; It's important to note that under President Bush, the US and China were able to rebuild a relationship which had been severely damaged by the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989 and which had only muddled through during the Clinton years.

To many Chinese, Obama remains an untested quantity. To the extent that Obama's policies can be discerned, some Chinese are wary that they are being asked to underwrite Obama's utopian socialized healthcare.

They are further concerned that Obama's high tax, antigrowth agenda is hampering an economic recovery here.

This will impair China's own export-driven economy and in the long run threatens the safety of its massive holding of Treasury debt.

MINYAO WANG

New York, N.Y.

Iran could be a better neighbor

Regarding Geneive Abdo's opinion essay, "Israel expects negotiations with Iran to fail;" I was left baffled by her claim that "Tehran believes it needs nuclear power to protect itself from a hostile neighborhood."

In reality, it is not Iran that needs to fear its neighborhood but its neighborhood that needs to fear Iran.

For instance, Iran funds the terrorist groups Hezbollah and Hamas, and has promised to destroy Israel. Iran also funds many of the terrorists in Iraq that are killing Iraqis and disrupting the future of Iraq. In contrast, the last time anyone attacked Iran was in the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s.

Iran enjoys portraying itself as a victim of hostile forces, such as when it levied false claims of tampering against the US and Britain during the recent tainted Iranian election. The reality is that Iran's attempts at regional hegemony show that Iran is the true hostile neighbor of the Middle East.

JASON LEVINSON

Houston, Texas