Iran ridicules tough speech by Bush as desperate

Source: Compiled by Daily Star, 15-01-2008
Iran on Monday lashed out at President George W. Bush's speech urging Arabs to confront Tehran, saying regional ties would hold strong and the remarks smacked of desperation.
"The declarations of Bush show the desperation and sense of failure in the last months of his presidency," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini.
"The Islamic Republic and the countries of the region have lived in peace for a time longer than the history of the US itself," he said in statement.
Bush on Sunday unloaded on Iran in a speech in the United Arab Emirates, saying that Tehran was "the world's leading state sponsor of terror," and, alongside Al-Qaeda, the main threat to regional stability.
"The United States is strengthening our longstanding security commitments with our friends in the Gulf - and rallying friends around the world to confront this danger before it is too late," Bush said.
Hosseini retorted: "He is making a distraction as he knows that he has not managed to obtain the consent of Muslim and Arab countries for his unilateral support of the Zionist ["Israeli"] regime."
"The declarations of Bush to isolate Iran recall the diplomacy of domination and colonialism the last decades," he added.
Tehran and Washington have had no diplomatic links since 1980 when the United States cut relations amid a siege of the US embassy in Tehran.
Exchanges between the two foes have been marked by acrimony and suspicion, with Washington accusing Tehran of interfering in Iraq, human rights abuses and defying the world with its nuclear program.
Tehran appeared to have taken the upper hand following a disputed naval incident in the Straits of Hormuz last week, when the Navy Times newspaper reported that the threatening radio message in a video showing Iranian patrol boats swarming near US warships may have come from a prankster rather than from the Iranian vessels.
Nevertheless, Washington has garnered regional and Western support in its push to harness Iran's regional ascension and Tehran itself has shown serious signs of political division in advance of the nation's springtime elections.
Iranian conservatives critical of hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are forming a coalition for the March parliamentary elections, marking a clear split in the conservative camp, MPs said on Monday.
The new conservative coalition, which will rival another grouping closer to Ahmadinejad, is to be built around three heavyweight figures - former nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani, ex-Revolutionary Guards chief Mohsen Rezaie and Tehran Mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf.
"The coalition will include the political friends of Ali Larijani, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, and Mohsen Rezaie," said Reza Talaie Nik, a conservative MP.
Larijani is himself running for Parliament in the March 14 poll, which will be seen as a crucial popularity test for Ahmadinejad ahead of 2009 presidential elections.
Qalibaf and Rezaie are major conservative figures who have in recent weeks sharply criticized the confrontational foreign policy positions and expansionary economic polices of Ahmadinejad.
A reformist alliance between former presidents Mohammad Khatami and Hashimi Rafsanjani has also coalesced of late - voicing similar criticisms of Ahmadinejad's foreign and domestic policies.