According to Western news reports, Vice President Joe Biden gave a solid speech at Munich, offering a new, more flexible, more sensitive diplomatic approach to questions regarding Iranian nuclear ambitions.
While it’s great for the press and Western officials to pat the vice president on the back and celebrate that his name is not Cheney, judging diplomacy on only one side is like watching only one side at a soccer match. How did the Iranians react to Biden’s speech? Aftab-e Yazd, a reformist paper, condemns Biden’s speech for not fundamentally altering the U.S. position on Iran’s nuclear program, terrorism, and support for the right of Israel to exist.
Meanwhile, Parliamentary Speaker Ali Larijani acknowledged that Ahmadinejad had spoken about annihilating (i.e., wiping Israel off the map), but had since “balanced” his views. This may present a problem for University of Michigan Professor Juan Cole who has made a cottage industry by cherrypicking one of Ahmadinejad two dozen statements calling for Israel’s elimination and questioning that Ahmadinejad meant what even Iranian officials now acknowledged he said.
