Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei has welcomed comments by President Obama damping down talk of war against Iran over its nuclear program.
Khamenei’s website today quoted the leader telling Islamic scholars from Iran’s Assembly of Experts: “This talk is good talk and shows an exit from illusion.”
[wpcol_1half id=”” class=”” style=””]The Ayatollah was responding to comments made by President Obama in a press conference on Tuesday.
Obama accused leading Republicans of electioneering and “beating the drums of war” to try and gain political advantage.
Obama said: “When I see the casualness with which some of these folks talk about war, I’m reminded of the costs involved in war.
“This is not a game, there’s nothing casual about it.”
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Ahmadinejad tours Iran’s uranium enrichment plant. Photo J. Hanin[/wpcol_1half_end]
The President said that it was in everybody’s interest “to see if this can be resolved in a peaceful fashion” and that there was no need to make a hasty decision in the next few weeks or months.
[wpcol_1half id=”” class=”” style=””]Speaking at an event in Massachusetts, awaiting results of the ‘super Tuesday’ elections, Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney said Obama had made “some extraordinary errors” over Iran.
Obama’s former presidential opponent also hit back at his comments.
Senator John McCain told CBS News: “So there’s a robber outside your house that says he wants to rob you, and he’s putting together a gun.
“You wait until he gets the gun?”
While the US President may have put the dampeners on the march to war for the time being, it is unlikely to have eased the hostilities between Israel and Iran.
[/wpcol_1half] [wpcol_1half_end id=”” class=”” style=””]Netanyahu’s speech quickly became the target of ridicule on social networking sites and was remixed on Youtube[/wpcol_1half_end]
In a speech to the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: “If it looks like a duck, if it walks like a duck, if it quacks like a duck, then what is it? That’s right. It’s a duck. But this duck is a nuclear duck!”
Main Image: Foundation of Holy Defence Values, Archives and Publications, via Wikimedia Commons
Sourced: AFP news wires.
