SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER. At Davos:

We were having dinner in the elegant restaurant of a Davos hotel: some reporters, some academics, and Kamal Kharrazi, the foreign minister of Iran, accompanied by his entourage.

[...]

Kharrazi is a striking man, severe and dignified. His English is fluent – he has a PhD in education from the University of Houston – and he speaks slowly, heightening the effect of each word. He never says anything unreasonable-sounding, and every so often he drops an endearingly self-deprecating remark. Iran, he says, "has not been understood outside." He is here to help us to understand.

[...]

The time has come for questions from the floor. I have mine: If Israel withdraws to the June 4, 1967, lines, would Iran recognize Israel? I'm guessing he'll answer yes.

Of course, he does not. Land that's occupied must be returned to its rightful owners, he says. And he means all the land, reciting the history of Iran's dissent in 1947 from the UN's partition plan. That Israel had diplomatic representation in Iran during the period of the shah is glossed over: Evidently, he does take us for fools.

"The final solution to the dispute," Kharrazi concludes, "is a one-state solution." As is his habit, the words are carefully chosen.

Indeed.

Read The Rest Scale: 2.5 out of 5.