In a response fit for a wronged lover, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rejected a renewed effort from the U.S. to engage diplomatically, saying that President Barack Obama’s call to talks contained “three or four beautiful words” but that the U.S. had yet to change its ways.
Puritanism is reigning supreme once again as many readers of BabyTalk magazine were offended en masse by the sight of—horror of horrors—a breast offering sustenance to an infant on the magazine’s cover.
Several Sunni-led insurgent groups have begun talks with the Iraqi government in hopes of starting cease-fire negotiations. The talks began in the wake of the reconciliation plan that the Iraqi prime minister presented on Sunday.
Veteran N.Y. Times political reporter Adam Nagourney, reporting from the blog conference in Las Vegas, writes that “the blogosphere has become for the left what talk radio has been for the right: a way of organizing and communicating to supporters.”
That’s the provocative question posed by this N.Y. Times article. “It became obvious to Mr. Bush that he could not ... consider military strikes on Iranian nuclear sites unless he first showed a willingness to engage Iran’s leadership directly over its nuclear program and exhaust every nonmilitary option.” Has a decision to hit Iran already been made? Are we seeing a charade like the one before the Iraq war?
Iranian officials are furiously working diplomatic back channeles to open a dialogue with the U.S. (Apparently the Iranian’s president’s 18-page letter to Bush opened the floodgates.) The significance of this? For 25 years Iran has enforced a taboo against making overtures to “The Great Satan.”