Barack Obama thinks we need to engage with Iran
Look at what the people he wants to be engaged to are doing:
The Egyptian official said that the two Iranian emissaries, viagra sales clinic Ali Larijani, cialis buy Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, and Said Jalili of the Iranian Intelligence Service, met in the Syrian capital with Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal and Islamic Jihad Secretary-General Ramadan Shallah.
“As soon as the Iranians heard about the Egyptian cease-fire initiative, they dispatched the two officials to Damascus on an urgent mission to warn the Palestinians against accepting it,” the Egyptian government official told thePost.
“The Iranians threatened to stop weapons supplies and funding to the Palestinian factions if they agreed to a cease-fire with Israel. The Iranians want to fight Israel and the US indirectly. They are doing this through Hamas in Palestine and Hizbullah in Lebanon.”
The official pointed out that the Iranians were applying “double standards” regarding the current conflict – on the one hand, they encouraged Iranian men to volunteer to fight alongside Hamas; on the other hand, Iran’s spiritual leader, Ali Khamenei, told the volunteers that they would not be permitted to join the fight against Israel.
“The Iranians never fired one bullet at Israel,” he said. “But now they are trying to appear as if they are participating in the war against Israel. The leaders of Teheran don’t care about the innocent civilians who are being killed in the Gaza Strip.”
The Egyptian official accused Iran of “encouraging” Hamas to continue firing rockets at Israel with the hope that this would trigger a war that would divert attention from Iran’s nuclear plans.
“This conflict serves the interests of the Iranians,” he said. “They are satisfied because the violence in the Gaza Strip has diverted attention from their nuclear ambitions. The Iranians are also hoping to use the Palestinian issue as a ‘powerful card’ in future talks with the Americans.
5 comments January 11th, 2009