Obama's refusal to hold debate with Iran president, a defeat for US
IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency
Tehran, Aug 5, IRNA -- U.S. President Barack Obama's refusal to hold a debate with Iranian president at the United Nations General Assembly registered a blow to the United States.
The Western and US media preferred to remain silent when the US officials showed a remarkable withdrawal after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran officially announced his readiness to hold “face-to-face” talks with his US counterpart.
In his speech to a meeting with a large number of Iranian expatriates in Tehran, President Ahmadinejad said last Monday that he was ready to hold a face-to-face debate with President Barack Obama on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session which is due to be held in September.
“I would like to declare my readiness to have a face to face talk in presence of world media with the US president at the United Nations General Assembly,” President Ahmadinejad said on August 2.
The news of President Ahmadinejad’s proposal received large coverage by the world media, the US and Western media in particular. The large coverage was surprising for the world political and media analysts.
However, the White House reaction to the Iranian president’s proposal received little coverage.
They only published Washington’s refusal to the proposal as a common and normal report and paid no attention to that as a considerable event of the international developments.
The White House spokesman Robert Gibbs claimed that Washington would not enter talks with Tehran.
He refused to elaborate the reason for Washington’s refusal to hold debate with the Iranian president.
Meanwhile, spokesman of the US State Department Philip Crowley later claimed that Iran was not serious in its proposal adding that it was made as a result of the new round of sanctions imposed on Iran for its nuclear program.
Both spokesmen forgot to say that was not the first time that the US president refused to take part in a debate with his Iranian counterpart.
President Ahmadinejad had made similar proposals before taking part in a debate with US presidents both during President Obama and his predecessor George W. Bush.
Although many of the political and international developments analysts had already predicted that President Obama would never accept to sit for direct talks with his Iranian counterpart as he fears to face critical, sensitive and challenging questions about various international issues, what is so much surprising is that the Western and American media have kept full silent about the White House refusal to accept Iran’s proposal.
Now the world public opinion is facing the question that why the Iranian proposal was massively covered by the world media and emerged at the top of their headlines while reaction of the White House, regardless of its negative or positive nature, was missed in reports of the key American and Western news channels despite the fact that it enjoyed a similar importance.
Analysts believe that the silence of the world media vis-à-vis the White House refusal to accept Iran’s reasonable proposal was not unintentional but instead was part of a targeted and intentional news censorship policy.
The fact that the media leaning to the White House policies preferred to remain silent vis-à-vis the disappointing reaction of the US Administration to Iran’s debate proposal indicated Washington’s diplomatic defeat.
Speaking to ‘Russia Today’ program on Wednesday, a number of world political analysts told the Russian news channel that they had predicted what would be President Obama’s reaction to President Ahmadinejad’s debate proposal.
The analysts said that the reason behind Washington’s withdrawal was that President Obama feared to face challenging questions bout the Zionist regime and realities of the US domestic problems as well as the problems created by the US for the world countries including Iraq and Afghanistan.
The analysts added that President Obama feared the strong logic of his Iranian counterpart would cause problem for him and would drive him to face different challenges.
Meanwhile, Vice-President of Russia’s academy of geopolitical researches Vladimir Anokhin told IRNA that President Ahmadinejad’s proposal was problematic for the US president.
It would be a political and diplomatic defeat for him to refuse to talk to President Ahmadinejad, said the analyst.
“US officials became confused by President Ahmadinejad’s unexpected proposal and if President Obama refuses to hold a direct negotiation with his Iranian counterpart, this will be a political and diplomatic defeat for him,” Anokhin said.
He believed that President Obama required to improve his status within the American society and prepare some evidence to prove Washington’s baseless allegations against Iran before entering any talks with President Ahmadinejad.
“President Ahmadinejad’s proposal indicates Iran’s full command consistent with US policy and that the US is politically in a sliding position compared to Iran,” Anokhin argued.
Latest polls about President Obama’s popularity inside America confirm political analysts’ idea that the US president was not willing to talk to his Iranian counterpart as President Obama feared that would deepen the existing distrust about him and worsen his situation in the eyes of the American people and international public opinion.
According to the latest opinion polls conducted by Gallup and the USA Today newspaper, only 41 per cent of the Americans said they were satisfied with the way President Obama runs the country.
The figures indicated that his popularity reached its weakest point since he took office in January 2009.
Therefore, it could be concluded that President Obama’s popularity would have even been further decreased if he had accepted to hold direct talks with President Ahmadinejad.
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