Mohammad Khazaei Quotes
Iran is for negotiations…. This is the principle of Iranian Foreign Policy…. Iranians should make sure that the United States is not using pressure on Iran for negotiations.
At the time the United States was leading a very effective set of economic sanctions against Iran for the express purpose of pressuring them to abandon their nuclear development program that could also be used for nuclear weapons development.
Mohammad Khazaei, Iranian Ambassador to the United Nations, Interview, CNN Global Public Square, March 3, 2013
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
By the standards of the rest of the world the North Korean policies and actions were at the time irrational and inconsistent and explained in a manner which defied any norms that any other nation’s leaders could understand and explain.
Kennan was talking about the Russians, but the same principle seems to hold with any autocratic government and in some cases even democracies. However, the tradition of secret diplomacy with no transparency is established even in many democracies. Great Britain and France, for example conduct most of their diplomacy in secret as do less democratic governments and tyrannies. They expect us to keep negotiations confidential, which causes American diplomats to be torn between the American view of transparency and the tradition of confidentiality.
The quotation is notable as it illustrates the great difficulty that modern democracies have with extreme Islamic fundamentalists. Their very perception and world view is so different that often we think of the extremists as insane and they often feel the same way about us.
Shariatmadari sometimes serves as a spokesman for major Religious officials of the Iranian theocracy. This quotation is particularly interesting as it illustrates a particular world view of some Iranian leaders that makes it almost impossible to cope with problems through diplomatic means. The argument is that if Iran negotiates with America on any issue, Iran would be a poor example to other Islamic nations because they would conclude that Iran and all Muslim countries had no choice but get along with America. The idea that negotiating with a nation means that a country is “getting along” with the other country is of course the absurdity. But it is believed by many in the Muslim world. Ironically that same view is held by “hard liners” in America and most other countries in addition to Iran. There are Americans who do not believe that we should negotiate with Iran at all because the negotiations gives them a status that they do not deserve. And it connotes a level of approval by America of Iran just to talk with them.
Ramsay was the first major historian of the American Revolution.
