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March 09, 2006
We Bomb, You Accept
This is how the Washington Post story, titled "Iran Threatens U.S. Over Nuclear Program," begins:
Iran threatened the United States with "harm and pain" Wednesday if the U.S. tries to use the U.N. Security Council _ which has the power to impose sanctions _ as a lever to punish Tehran for its suspect nuclear program.
This is what you find if you read all the way to the bottom of the fairly long piece:
"The United States has the power to cause harm and pain," Ali Asghar Soltanieh, the chief Iranian delegate to the IAEA, said, reading from a statement. "But the United States is also susceptible to harm and pain. So if that is the path that the U.S. wishes to choose, let the ball roll."
This is what the Post tells us it means:
... diplomats said the comment as possibly a veiled threat to use oil as a weapon.
So, let me get this straight.
If Iran says that U.S. would also suffer "harm and pain" if it causes "harm and pain" to Iran, that's a threat from them and not from us. And the Post informs us that diplomats think what it means is that Iran might pump less oil, or otherwise pressure world oil markets. So, we have a right to bomb them, but they don't have a right to extact less of a natural resource that's on their soil, as a response to our bombing them.
And the news piece in which all this information is buried is titled "Iran Threatens U.S..."
Posted by zeynep at March 9, 2006 09:02 AM
Comments
Quite similar to the shorter piece about North Korea I posted earlier today.
Posted by: Eli Stephens at March 9, 2006 07:57 PM