Happy Nowruz? Iran finds fault with Obama's new year greeting.

Both President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry hit positive notes in their messages. But Iran's Supreme Leader Khamenei was critical of other elements.

|
Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/AP
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, gives a speech at a public gathering in the city of Mashhad, Iran, Friday, March 21, 2014. Khamenei, who has accused President Obama of 'insulting' Iran from his first day in office, had strong words of complaint in his own Nowruz address this morning.

By now, the US and Iran should know which words calm and which words incite.

And yet, even when diplomacy is in overdrive, as it is now with Iran and six world powers striving for a comprehensive nuclear deal by July, words can do as much harm as good. 

President Barack Obama hit many of the right notes yesterday in his annual message to mark “Nowruz,” the Persian new year. He spoke of the “Islamic Republic of Iran” – implicitly recognizing the revolutionary state estranged from the US since 1979 – and offered the prospect of a new US-Iran relationship “rooted in mutual interest and mutual respect.” He enthused about the “talents and genius of the Iranian people” throughout history.

Likewise, Secretary of State John Kerry said “my own family is stronger” with the “presence and love” of Iranian-Americans. He used the term “Persian Gulf” – instead of “Arabian Gulf,” which is favored by US allies in the region – and expressed hope that the “harsh winters in our past” can end. The US Treasury – which oversees US sanctions on Iran – issued a new license to enhance student and educational exchanges.

But the message of goodwill was undermined by a few words from President Obama that were certainly taken as a poke in Tehran. He blamed the “economic hardship” suffered by Iranians not on the sanctions imposed by the US and Europe, but on the “choices of Iranian leaders.”

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has accused Obama of “insulting” Iran from his first day in office, had strong words of complaint in his own Nowruz address this morning. Although he did not comment on Obama's words against Iranian leadership, Mr. Khamenei also ignored Washington's positive Nowruz tone.

Referring to top US officials’ usual talking points that “all options,” including military ones, can be used against Iran’s nuclear program if diplomacy fails, and talk from US politicians that Iran had caved in on its principles, Mr. Khamenei said people “realized the Americans are being impolite.”

Calling the US the "enemy" and a "dictatorial and arrogant" power, Khamenei said today the Americans “used rhetoric and language that was less courteous and more aggressive… and insulting to the people” as the large crowd in the shrine city of Mashhad chanted “Death to America!” 

If Obama's comments cause a lasting problem, it will not be the first time that one side's mollifying balm is taken as a barb by the other. 

In 2000, then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright acknowledged Iran’s grievances against the US, including the CIA-orchestrated coup in 1953 and support for Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s.

It was not an official apology, but Ms. Albright addressed many points that festered in Iran. Yet she also referred to Iran’s “unelected leaders” – and those two words helped ensure that US overture went nowhere, despite the apologetic words around it. 

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Happy Nowruz? Iran finds fault with Obama's new year greeting.
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Security-Watch/Under-the-Radar/2014/0321/Happy-Nowruz-Iran-finds-fault-with-Obama-s-new-year-greeting
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe