First Putin now Iran…
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TEHRAN, Iran - The head of Iran’s security council said on Tuesday the re-election of President Bush (news - web sites) was in Tehran’s best interests, despite the administration’s axis of evil label, accusations that Iran harbors al-Qaida terrorists and threats of sanctions over the country’s nuclear ambitions.
Historically, Democrats have harmed Iran more than Republicans, said Hasan Rowhani, head of the Supreme National Security Council, Iran’s top security decision-making body.
“We haven’t seen anything good from Democrats,” Rowhani told state-run television in remarks that, for the first time in recent decades, saw Iran openly supporting one U.S. presidential candidate over another.
“We should not forget that most sanctions and economic pressures were imposed on Iran during the time of Clinton,” Rowhani said of the former Democratic president. “And we should not forget that during Bush’s era — despite his hard-line and baseless rhetoric against Iran — he didn’t take, in practical terms, any dangerous action against Iran.”
Though Iran generally does not publicly wade into U.S. presidential politics, it has a history of preferring Republicans over Democrats, who tend to press human rights issues.
“We do not desire to see Democrats take over,” Rowhani said when asked if Iran was supporting Kerry against Bush.
The United States severed diplomatic relations with Iran after militants stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. Iranian clerics were crucial in determining the fate of the 1980 U.S. election when Republican Ronald Reagan (news - web sites) won in part because Democratic incumbent Jimmy Carter was unable to secure the hostages’ release.
The hostages were freed as Reagan was inaugurated.
The United States supported Iraq (news - web sites) in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, but by the late 1990s, U.S.-Iranian relations were somewhat better. They plummeted again after Bush accused Iran of being part of the “axis of evil” with North Korea (news - web sites) and prewar Iraq.
The Bush administration also accuses Iran of pursuing nuclear weapons and sheltering operatives of Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s al-Qaida terror network. Still, Iran was happy to see Bush destroy two big regional enemies — the Taliban in Afghanistan (news - web sites) and Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) in Iraq.
Iranian political analyst Mohsen Mofidi said ousting the Taliban and Saddam was the “biggest service any administration could have done for Iran.”
And Bush, he said, has learned from his mistakes.
“The experience of two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the responsibility Bush had, will make it a very remote possibility for him to risk attacking a much bigger and more powerful country like Iran,” he said.
Mofidi added that “Democrats usually insist on human rights and they will have more excuses to pressure Iran.”
You have been learning much too much about the Kerry campaign’s deceptive style and tactics. Neither Iran nor Russia will perceive that anything they directly say or do has determined the outcome of the election and thus the election outcome is neither a victory nor a loss of theirs against or for America. In case you forgot (Kerry can make you do that you know), the terrorists are at war with us. Last I checked, Russia and Iran were not. Part of the terrorists agenda is “regime change” in the US.
C’mon tell that to someone who doesn’t know the GOP game plan. That’s all Bush’s campaign is, there sure isn’t any substantive accomplishments to point to. “Mission Accomplished” ha!