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Iran’s Foreign Minister Berates and Abuses Kerry
Posted By Daniel Greenfield On November 24, 2014 @ 10:13 am In The Point | 8 Comments
Forward!
There’s Obama’s famed smart power. Apparently no one takes you seriously when your entire foreign policy is dismantling American power.
John Kerry should be used to it by now. Between the Viet Cong and the Sandinistas and the PLO, he’s practically made a career of it. And now Iran is just slapping him around, as Adam Kredo of the Free Beacon reports.
Iran’s foreign minister and lead negotiator in nuclear talks is known to frequently scream and shout at Western diplomats, including Secretary of State John Kerry, a practice that has caused alarm among bodyguards stationed outside the negotiating room, according to a member of the Iranian diplomatic team who spoke to the Farsi-language press.
The report of Zarif’s aggressive behavior is consistent with previous reports claiming that Iranian negotiators tend to treat their Western counterparts—particularly the Americans—with scorn.
Iranian diplomat Abbas Araghchi, another member of the negotiating team, is reported to have said in an interview that during past negotiations in Geneva, Zarif “shouted” at Kerry and spoke to him in a way that was likely “unprecedented” in the history of U.S. diplomacy.
Araghchi went on to claim that he and Zarif play the roles of “good cop, bad cop,” according to the report, also in Farsi. The two often exchange these roles in a bid to “baffle the Western diplomats” and keep them uneasy, the report claims.
Araghchi further claimed that Kerry said very little after being shouted at by Zarif, except for “one or two very respectful sentences.”
So yes, Iran is slapping this administration around like a pinata. But that’s how Obama and Kerry seem to like it.
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