One clear-thinker in Britain today is Douglas Murray of the Henry Jackson Society think-tank. Writing in the Spectator he asks if Rouhani’s Iran is serious:
A colossal outbreak of wilful optimism has followed from policy makers, ex-policy makers and media. This has been based largely on the fact that an Iranian President may have just acknowledged that the Holocaust of European Jewry occurred. Well huzzah.
For what it’s worth, President Rouhani didn’t quite say that. In the CNN interview he said that it was the job of historians to look at such things. And to the extent that he acknowledged that a ‘crime’ had occurred, Rouhani did so in order to put the Holocaust on an even pegging with the creation of the state of Israel. The official Iranian news agency is already insisting that CNN made up the bit about Rouhani acknowledging, let alone condemning, the Holocaust.
But the fact that this has been portrayed as some kind of breakthrough is a demonstration that certain people wish deeply to be fooled. Yesterday I found myself on the radio with one such fool, a Liberal Democrat peer who also happens to be chairman of something called the ‘Iranian British Chamber of Commerce’.
[…]
Once everything virtual is regarded as important, those things that actually are important start to seem virtual. Tweets and CNN interviews are mistaken for matters of the greatest import, and this allows everybody to ignore realities. Such as the fact that for 34 years Rouhani has been at the centre of an illegitimate revolutionary regime which carries out terrorism around the world and brutalises and represses its own people at home.
[…]
During his recent election campaign he boasted that during his period as Iran’s nuclear negotiator he did not suspend the programme but, rather, ‘completed it.’
But because this doesn’t often intrude on peoples’ social media consciousness they can happily ignore the whirring of the centrifuges, the hidden facilities, the internal repression and everything else that actually matters. Why think, let alone worry, about any such stuff when there’s a cute smiley clip of President Rouhani to be downloaded telling us what we want to hear?
Watch, or rather, listen to Murray’s argument against the dangerously stupid and malign Andrew Phillips, about whom I have written before, to understand how difficult it is to fight against this willful blindness of the West.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hWbQ06vjPo&feature=share&rel=0
As Douglas Murray so aptly concludes:
Over the last 24 hours the question really seems to be the wrong one: not whether Iran is serious, but whether we are.
Anne's Opinions 
Except for the few, but growing number of those who believe the earth is flat, Iranian sincerity claiming peaceful nuclear intentions is dismissed. Nevertheless, the false opportunity to negotiate is used by those having an agenda of avoiding military confrontation while displaying concern over the danger facing Israel, having been openly threatened with annihilation – “It would be wrong and somewhat unfortunate to sit idly by as Iran exterminates the Jews and their state – but let’s give peace a chance. Please pass the salt.” No rational person is being fooled. It is only that most are either Munich-cowardly or truthfully, just don’t care enough to engage in a war over the Middle East, or both. Although, Israel remains hopeful it will not have to fight alone, it is trying not to alienate the few who support its attempt to survive and who may even obstruct its military when it is called to defend itself – an utterly despicable commentary of the fallen character of the international community. The annihilation of Israel, and Jews generally, while not being perfectly acceptable, remains, ” … acceptable.”
Bibi UN speech: “He fooled the world once. Now he thinks he can fool it again. You see, Rouhani thinks he can have his yellow cake and eat it too”
Hahahahahahahahahahaha!!!
Kudos to the speech writer who came up with that witty line.
Hysterical. 🙂
Pete, USA