Middle East Focus: The Barack and Mahmoud Road Show, Bibi Boycotts Both…….

Arabia Deserta

The Barack and Mahmoud Road Show, Bibi Boycotts Both…….

Walking on water

Cable News networks covered live only two speeches at the UN General Assembly this year: that of the US and Iranian presidents. This year these two were Scarlett and Rhett (your pick as to who was who). Ashley Wilkes was nowhere around to distract the belle. The eccentric distraction of Muammar Gaddafi was not there this year, so these two had the whole show, the whole week, for themselves. If any other leaders were in New York, it was hard to tell. Medvedev? Who is he? Sarkozy? Who is he (sans Carla Bruni)? Arab leaders probably attended, but nobody noticed or heard them outside their own government-controlled televisions back home, mercifully.

Ahmadinejad was actually doing fine, holding his own, adroitly evading questions about arrests and imprisonment of reformists, until his General Assembly speech and his mention of 9/11. With all the talk of the Holocaust, he sure did not need the 9/11 controversy, a real outlier propagated by a handful of “theorists” in the United States and more in the outside world. I still think there was something lost in translation about his mention of 9/11. Otherwise, it was a stupid thing for him to say (he has been there, done that). I need to see a Farsi version (I’ll also check Drudge or the New Republic).

What may be telling is the report that the Israeli delegation boycotted both speeches (Obama and Ahmadinejad). The Likud and allies now seem to believe that Obama will be a one termer (based on advice from Boehner and Cantor?), that he may be the last schwartze elected for a generation to come.
Cheers
mhg

(Corrcetion: it was a Jewish holiday, nothing political or telling. My bad. Still, he does probably think Obama is a one-termer.)

m.h.ghuloum@gmail.com