You have issued a statement, pronounced a position and declared a decision. Yet it is beginning to look as if you may have been wrong. That's not a problem, as long as you're not afraid to swallow a little pride and backtrack.
Scorpio (Oct. 24 — Nov. 22)
In being forced to deal with something or someone difficult, you are effectively smoothing something out. And like the pounding of the sea on a jagged coastline, your drama will result in a situation with no more sharp edges.
You are not yet entirely free of a source of annoyance and exasperation. But you are, with each moment, moving away from this and all that it represents. All you need, to get further away still, is time, not effort. So relax and get your mind off it all.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki reportedly
(CNN) -- Top Iranian officials heaped scorn on President Bush's visit to the Middle East, with one of them saying the American leader was attempting to stir up "Iranophobia," a state-run Iranian news agency reported Monday.
Iran's Islamic Republic News Agency noted the comments of Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki and Ala'eddin Boroujerdi, head of the Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission.
President Bush, in a speech Sunday in Abu Dhabi, labeled Iran as the "world's leading sponsor of terror" and asked allies to join the United States in confronting Iran "before it's too late."
But Mottaki -- who made his remarks to Al-Jazeera news network Sunday -- said the United States "was the main cause of extremism in the region as it has been supporting terrorist and extremist groups during the past six years." 
Watch excerpt from Bush's speech »
He said Bush was trying to foment tensions in the Persian Gulf over the Strait of Hormuz incident on January 6. The U.S. military described a confrontation between U.S. ships and Iranian boats, but Mottaki called the American version of the story fabricated, the Islamic Republic News Agency said.
The report paraphrased Mottaki as saying that "fanning the fuel of Iranophobia was the objective of Bush's visit to the region."
Don't Miss
Bush's Mideast tour includes visits to Israel, the West Bank, Bahrain, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. 
See map of Bush's itinerary »
He arrived Monday in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, for talks with King Abdullah. Watch Bush in Saudi Arabia »
Also Monday, the Bush administration said it notified Congress of plans to sell $20 billion in arms to Saudi Arabia. The deal includes the proposed sale of 900 "joint direct attack munitions" worth close to $120 million, said U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.
The arms package is part of a U.S. strategy to beef up security of its Persian Gulf allies to counter threats posed by Iran's rising influence in the region.
In the IRNA report, Boroujerdi said that referring to Iran as a threat won't affect Teheran's ties with its neighbors.
Mottaki touted growing bilateral cooperation between Iran and its neighbors and said that U.S. officials can't "understand the historical, religious and cultural commonalties between Iran and other regional countries," said the IRNA report.
The report paraphrased Boroujerdi as saying Bush's talk about Iran "is the saber-rattling of a defeated man."
"Bush would achieve no results from his visit to the region given Iran's current cooperation with the regional states as well as Tehran's firm decision to safeguard regional security with the help of the regional countries," the lawmaker said.
Boroujerdi indicated that Bush embarked on the trip to shore up support for his unpopular policies and that his visit to the West Bank and the Persian Gulf "was just a political propaganda campaign as he knew his policies in the region were futile.
No comments:
Post a Comment