|
Ahmadinejad Tirade on Afghanistan Prompts U.S. Walkout
[An Nahar] A U.S. delegation walked out of a regional conference in Tajikistan Monday after Iran's diminutive President  Mahmoud Short RoundAhmadinejad lambasted U.S. policy on Afghanistan as the source of all the country's troubles. Ahmadinejad launched his new tirade against Washington at a conference in the Tajik capital Dushanbe attended by leaders of Afghanistan's neighbors as well as a U.S. delegation led by Assistant Secretary of State Robert Blake. "The cause of all the ills in Afghanistan is the presence on Afghan soil of NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the cut of the American pants... forces and above all those of the United States," the Iranian president told the Regional Economic Cooperation Conference on Afghanistan (RECCA). As the firebrand ... firebrandsare noted more for audio volume and the quantity of spittle generated than for any actual logic in their arguments... Iranian president was giving his speech, Blake pointedly led the U.S. delegation out of the conference hall. Encounters -- even at multinational regional conferences -- between the United States and Iran are extremely rare. The two countries cut diplomatic relations in the wake of the 1979 Islamic Revolution and ties have remained severed ever since. Tensions are rising again over Iran's nuclear program and Washington has never ruled out military action. Ahmadinejad, whose country shares a huge border with Afghanistan, said that U.S. forces had gone into the country with the aim of encircling the whole strategic region. "They went into Afghanistan using the pretext of the fight against terror and now under the same slogan they are surrounding Russia, India and China," Ahmadinejad said. "We want foreign troops to leave Afghanistan in the shortest time," he added. The conference -- which is also being attended by Afghanistan's Caped President Hamid Maybe I'll join the TalibanKarzai ... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtunface on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use... and Pak counterpart  Asif Ali President Ten PercentZardari ... sticky-fingered husband of the late Benazir Bhutto ... -- is the fifth such meeting since 2005 and aims to boost cooperation in rebuilding Afghanistan. Posted by: Fred 2012-03-27 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=341715 |