Burns, Jalili and Shari’atmadari
\"Nothing important has really happened!\" The mouthpiece of radical rights is trying to convince hardliner supporters that Jalili-Burns talks did not matter. By Morteza Kazemian
In his editorial on Sunday 18th of October, editor-in-chief of [hardliner] Kayhan daily newspaper Hosein Shari’atmadari described the Jalili-Burns negotiations in Geneva "counter-negotiation", "a prefab meeting" and just an "imposed show". Shari’atmadari labels the meeting as such when Head of the National Security Council Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s remarks on the encounter were: "the U.S. representative had asked for talks, Mr. Jalili welcomed the proposal, and their negotiations were fruitful". Shari’atmadari’s reaction to the comment is interesting: "there is no doubt that Dr. Ahmadinejad’s remark were slip of the tongue".
Kayhan editor-in-chief downgrades the occasion while Kazem Jalali, speaker of parliament’s National Security Committee admits that Jalili-Burns negotiations "concerned Iran’s proposal package and some nuclear issues". Jalali does not deny the ’negotiations’. It is good to know that the encounter was the first of its kind between two senior Iranian and American officials in thirty years and was considered as a major step towards a likely détente between Tehran and Washington.
Shari’atmadari of course tries to draw on the definition of negotiation to decry the meeting and call it a ruse by the Americans to get into talks. Quite intentionally, he overlooks the significance of the encounter per se. Striving to stick to a radical stand; he assures the hardliner grassroots of the principlist camp (and not the moderates or pragmatist conservatives) that ’nothing really important has happened’. However, it seems that the fervent, young stratum of the right wing (that expresses its stance through statements of Student Basij Association) sees the picture from a different angle. The latest statement released by this group reads: "the news of negotiations between Iranian and American delegations has surprised this movement. The Great Satan, who considers itself as the possessor of the earth, is just one member of Five plus One and it is only the group as a united body that Iran should negotiate with. The negotiation itself is not a part of Iran’s nuclear dossier legal process, comes from the greed of self-assumed defenders of democracy and is condemned. […] the students’ movement is still vigilante and considers ideological change of criminal United States as the only means to initiate relations with it. A tactical change (like the one which exists now) is not sufficient. Therefore, it [the students movement] regards releasing Iran’s assets, compensating for all the financial and non-financial damages from past until now, apologizing to the Iranian nation and officials for previous conduct, stopping all direct and indirect aids to Israel, tangible efforts to the rights of the oppressed nation of Palestine and non-acting against the people of Gaza as the preconditions to resume relations with the United States".
Time and again Kayhan has proved its skills in manipulating the reality. The root of Kayhan’s latest feat is not clear for the external observer, but it appears that common ideology and interests, and joint political-security projects of the senior functionaries of the newspaper with the dominant layer of the authoritarian camp (radical rights) determine the journalistic outlet of this newspaper. Therefore, Shari’atmadari has no reservations to play the role of the ’bad guy’ at times and, make decisions that on the surface run at odds with the project run by the power core. For whatever it takes, he controls the most important mouthpiece of the authoritarians.
Fully aware of the significance of Jalili-Burns meeting, Shari’atmadari stands firm on his ’radical principlist’ position, tries to convince the typical readers of his newspaper, impose his preferred interpretation and make the reader believe it. That is why he even claims his understanding of the meeting is closer to reality than Ahmadinejad’s. It is not difficult to imagine what Kayhan would print if such an encounter had taken place during Khatami’s presidency and instead of Jalili another Iranian diplomat, say, Hassan Rohani had talked to William Burns.
Regardless of what Kayhan and its editor-in-chief prefer and write, the course of Iran-West (the United States) interaction gives clear signals of the Islamic Republic and Ahmadinejad’s endeavors to initiate negotiations with White House and its allies, exactly at a time when the gap between the civil society and the administration has become the widest after the presidential elections. A closer look at Ahmadinejad’s account of Jalili-Burns talks may help us to grasp the story better: "the U.S. representative had asked for talks, Mr. Jalili welcomed the proposal ". Time is needed to see what will emerge of the negotiations and how the leaders of authoritarian camp will reconcile it with their ’principlistic’ ideals.
Kayhan editor-in-chief downgrades the occasion while Kazem Jalali, speaker of parliament’s National Security Committee admits that Jalili-Burns negotiations "concerned Iran’s proposal package and some nuclear issues". Jalali does not deny the ’negotiations’. It is good to know that the encounter was the first of its kind between two senior Iranian and American officials in thirty years and was considered as a major step towards a likely détente between Tehran and Washington.
Shari’atmadari of course tries to draw on the definition of negotiation to decry the meeting and call it a ruse by the Americans to get into talks. Quite intentionally, he overlooks the significance of the encounter per se. Striving to stick to a radical stand; he assures the hardliner grassroots of the principlist camp (and not the moderates or pragmatist conservatives) that ’nothing really important has happened’. However, it seems that the fervent, young stratum of the right wing (that expresses its stance through statements of Student Basij Association) sees the picture from a different angle. The latest statement released by this group reads: "the news of negotiations between Iranian and American delegations has surprised this movement. The Great Satan, who considers itself as the possessor of the earth, is just one member of Five plus One and it is only the group as a united body that Iran should negotiate with. The negotiation itself is not a part of Iran’s nuclear dossier legal process, comes from the greed of self-assumed defenders of democracy and is condemned. […] the students’ movement is still vigilante and considers ideological change of criminal United States as the only means to initiate relations with it. A tactical change (like the one which exists now) is not sufficient. Therefore, it [the students movement] regards releasing Iran’s assets, compensating for all the financial and non-financial damages from past until now, apologizing to the Iranian nation and officials for previous conduct, stopping all direct and indirect aids to Israel, tangible efforts to the rights of the oppressed nation of Palestine and non-acting against the people of Gaza as the preconditions to resume relations with the United States".
Time and again Kayhan has proved its skills in manipulating the reality. The root of Kayhan’s latest feat is not clear for the external observer, but it appears that common ideology and interests, and joint political-security projects of the senior functionaries of the newspaper with the dominant layer of the authoritarian camp (radical rights) determine the journalistic outlet of this newspaper. Therefore, Shari’atmadari has no reservations to play the role of the ’bad guy’ at times and, make decisions that on the surface run at odds with the project run by the power core. For whatever it takes, he controls the most important mouthpiece of the authoritarians.
Fully aware of the significance of Jalili-Burns meeting, Shari’atmadari stands firm on his ’radical principlist’ position, tries to convince the typical readers of his newspaper, impose his preferred interpretation and make the reader believe it. That is why he even claims his understanding of the meeting is closer to reality than Ahmadinejad’s. It is not difficult to imagine what Kayhan would print if such an encounter had taken place during Khatami’s presidency and instead of Jalili another Iranian diplomat, say, Hassan Rohani had talked to William Burns.
Regardless of what Kayhan and its editor-in-chief prefer and write, the course of Iran-West (the United States) interaction gives clear signals of the Islamic Republic and Ahmadinejad’s endeavors to initiate negotiations with White House and its allies, exactly at a time when the gap between the civil society and the administration has become the widest after the presidential elections. A closer look at Ahmadinejad’s account of Jalili-Burns talks may help us to grasp the story better: "the U.S. representative had asked for talks, Mr. Jalili welcomed the proposal ". Time is needed to see what will emerge of the negotiations and how the leaders of authoritarian camp will reconcile it with their ’principlistic’ ideals.