Full text available at: http://afpakpolicy.com/US_IRAN_AFG.pdf

“Although U.S. President Barack Obama has made diplomatic engagement with Iran a foreign-policy priority, at least 30 years of conflict have complicated U.S.-Iran relations. The United States is viewed by the Iranian government as a hostile interventionist state attempting to topple the Iranian republic, indicated by the U.S. role in the 1953 coup d’état of the legal Iranian government, vehement rejection of the Islamic Revolution, disregard for Saddam Hussein’s use of chemical weapons during the Iran-Iraq War, the shooting down of an Iranian passenger plane, imposing economic sanctions, freezing of Iranian financial assets, resistance to Iranian nuclear progress for clean energy, and threats to invade or attack Iran.4 Iran’s pursuit of nuclear technology, its obstruction of the Middle East peace process, its involvement in the Beirut attacks of the 1980s and the 1996 Khobar Towers (Saudi Arabia) bombing of an American troop residence, and providing lethal aid to violent non-state actors in Lebanon, Iraq, the Palestinian territories and Afghanistan are viewed by the United States as obstacles to rapprochement.”

Maybe I should say the Israeli tail wags the American dog, thanks to the hundreds of Aipac stooges in the US Congress.

I am keenly aware a large number of Jordanians loathe Israel, and of course they have excellent reasons for loathing Israel. And I did not mean to suggest Jordan would be so foolish as to have foreign policy determined by elections. Of course not! And keep in mind, in the US there is no option for those who think the US Congress is the tail wagged by the Israeli dog. Aipac intimidation and cooption is comprehensive.

Jordanian elections are not for positions with influence over Jordanian foreign policy. As you well know. Why would you have written that?

http://www.theisraelproject.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=hsJPK0PIJpH&b=689705&ct=7607423

On the fifteenth anniversary of peace between Israel and Jordan, a new poll commissioned by The Israel Project (TIP) shows intense Jordanian hostility toward the Jewish state. The poll, face-to-face interviews of 250 Jordanians, was conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research (GQRR) as part of a larger study for TIP that included interviews with 250 Gazans, 250 people in the West Bank and 500 Egyptians.

Even 15 years after peace was made between Israel and Jordan, Jordanians have not reconciled themselves to the existence or permanence of Israel as a Jewish state. Less than a quarter of respondents in Jordan think Israel has the right to exist, and three-quarters think Israel is “not necessarily here to stay as a permanent Jewish state.” It is not surprising, therefore, to find that most Jordanians also oppose the country’s diplomatic relations with Israel.

Jordan has elections, and apparently they are conducted fairly. Nonetheless, do you think Jordanian foreign policy is at odds with public opinion in Jordan, and if so, in what way?

It is of course true that the Government of India was controlled by the UK, prior to independence of India, Pakistan and Burmah. However, the Indian government sometimes took positions that the UK did not favor, in its policy for example toward the Ottoman provinces taken from Turkey at the end of the First World War.

That is not the case for Iran.

Are you saying that Jordanian foreign policy follows the wishes of the people of Jordan more closely, than that of Iran? Or the opposite? I think most Iranians support Iranian assistance to Hamas and Hezbollah, while most Jordanians agree with their King that Israel needs to end the occupation of the West Bank and the Golan Heights.

Shouldn’t the foreign policy of Iran be directed toward advancing the interests of the people of Iran?

If you and the people of Iran disagree on the interests of the people of Iran or how best to advance those interests, it is very important that the people of Iran’s perception of their interests overrules yours. For the most part, that is the case in Iran. For the most part, that is not the case in Jordan.

You are not a Polyanna (poly = many + yanna (Sanskrit) = path ?)

The Islamic Republic, in my opinion, is the best government that Iranians have had.

It is also the last best hope of the Muslim states – both Shia and Sunni – to find a path out of the obscurantism of Islamic Tradition and their Confrontation with Modernity.

But, at the same time, that government is poorly governing large sectors of the Iranian society. Eleven million vote caset last year for Mr. Mousavi, was an indicative of the depth of popular discontent. At least 1/3 of the country is quite fed-up with the Islamic Disaster.

One has to watch to see how Mr. Ahmadinejad is going to govern but he clearly has gone against the Doctors of Religion by submitting 3 female ministers (in the face of their opposition) with one approved by Majlis. Furthermore, last month he washed his hands off the morality police and stated unequivocally that his government has nothing to do with it (which is true).

But for hundreds of millions of Muslims – all over the world – that morality police is Islam. Those strictures are True Islam etc. Just like for an Orthodox Jew, not touching his wife during certain time of the month is an article of his religion.