[lit-ideas] culture clashes & politics
- From: JimKandJulieB@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2005 00:38:15 EST
Monty Python funny and a shadow of things to come....
_http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=615&e=18&u=/nm/davos_iran_mea
l_dc_
(http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=615&e=18&u=/nm/davos_iran_meal_dc)
Meal from Hell Whets Appetite for US-Iran Clash
Sat Jan 29, 4:31 PM ET
By Paul Taylor
DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) - Call it the meal from hell.
A World Economic Forum (_news_
(http://us.rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/nm/pl_nm/davos_iran_meal_dc/14137814/*http://news.search.yahoo.com/search/news?fr=ne
ws-storylinks&p="World%20Economic%20Forum"&c=&n=20&yn=c&c=news&cs=nw) -
_web sites_
(http://us.rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/nm/pl_nm/davos_iran_meal_dc/14137814/*http://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=web-storylinks&p=World%20Economic%
20Forum) ) dinner designed to promote dialogue between Iran and the United
States on Friday night began with a comic strip series of diplomatic and
gastronomic blunders, and ended with a sharp exchange over nuclear weapons.
With Iran's vice-president and foreign minister in the room, the organizers
began by announcing they had disinvited Swiss cartoonist Patrick Chappatte,
one of the listed panelists, because the issues were too serious.
The star guest, U.S. Senator Joe Biden, ranking Democrat on the Senate
foreign relations committee, was missing. The organizers kept saying he was on
his
way.
Moderator David Ignatius, a Washington Post columnist, apologized for the
fact that wine had been served, upsetting the Muslim guests. Waiters cleared
the
offending glasses.
They also removed the menus since the hotel had planned to serve non-hallal
meat, breaching Islamic dietary rules. Even the soup spoons were withdrawn --
erroneously, it transpired.
One participant asked whether different cultures could not tolerate each
other's dietary customs. Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi responded that
tolerance was fine but it did not mean people should not respect each other's
religious values.
If wine was served, his delegation could not participate in the meal, he
said.
SELF-SUFFICIENCY
The questioning quickly focused on Iran's disputed nuclear program and the
risk of a U.S. or Israeli military strike on its atomic facilities.
Kharrazi swore anew the program was purely for peaceful, civilian purposes,
contrary to U.S. and Israeli charges that it is a front for a secret drive to
build nuclear weapons.
The minister insisted Iran had every legal right to develop its scientific
potential, including by mastering the enrichment of uranium, a process that can
help make a bomb.
"We want to be independent. That's why we developed our nuclear technology.
It has become a matter of national pride," he said.
Asked whether it might be in Iran's national interest to foreswear nuclear
enrichment rather that risk isolation, tougher economic sanctions and military
action, he said maintaining scientific self-sufficiency was one of Tehran's
highest goals.
"Iran cannot be ignored. Its rights cannot be denied. Such a country with so
much potential has to be given room to play its role," Kharrazi said.
Perhaps feeling the atmosphere was becoming too heated, hotel staff opened
the windows, sending a blast of icy alpine air (outdoor temperature -15 C)
through the room.
Biden finally arrived an hour and 20 minutes late, having gone to the wrong
hotel. His wife's figure-hugging leather pants and a top that left her arms
bare from the shoulders were in stark contrast to Vice-President Masoumeh
Ebtekar's all-enveloping chador, although both wore black.
Biden, who had a long private meeting with Kharrazi at Davos last year, said
Washington should join three major European nations in trying to negotiate a
deal under which Iran would end nuclear enrichment in return for security and
economic benefits.
He cast doubt on Kharrazi's assurances, saying he could understand why there
could be consensus in Iran on the need for nuclear arms because it lived in a
dangerous neighborhood.
Both Iran and the U.S. administration must "grow up" and talk to each other
to get off "the course of unintended consequences," Biden said.
The Bush administration should be willing to give assurances that Washington
did not seek "regime change" in Iran if Tehran agreed to remove suspicions
about its nuclear program.
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