Meet the president of Iran

You may have heard that the Secret Service was dispatched to guard the president of Iran — one Masoud Pezeshkian — during his visit to the United Nations in New York last week. For some reason, the Secret Service has done a better with the President Pezeshkian than with President Trump.

AEI’s Danielle Pletka attended a closed session with Pezeshkian for press types. Pletka sizes Pezeshkian up and discreetly (per the rules under which the session was conducted) conveys his message:

Pezeshkian is a trade up from Raisi: Smarter, smoother, less ranty, and more approachable. And I want especially to emphasize the heart of his messaging, because you will recognize in it the heart of the New York Times, Financial Times, and other elite intellectual bastions’ messaging on Israel. First, he didn’t waste time with the antisemitism, and uttered the word “Zionist” once, more than an hour in. He had tested his approach with his Washington friends in private meetings (yes, we know who sees Team Tehran one-on-one), and he wasn’t going to waste points with college-level trolling. Second, he wanted us to know something: Iran does not want war. Iran hates violence. If the Palestinians want to make nice with Israel, that is their call.

Israel, you should know, wanted the hardliner to win the Iranian elections, so it could tell the world it was right about Iranian intransigence. But they didn’t get their wish, and Mr. Softie, Uncle Masoud, was the victor. He is well aware Iran needs reform, and he is the man to reform it.

Israel wants to drag Iran into a wider war, but the pacifists that run Iran are too committed to their healing message: No one wins in a war. If there is a peace to be had, Iran will do nothing to risk it. So, yes, Israel killed the top Hamas terror master in Tehran, and tested the Ayatollahs. But they were strong, they did not take the bait.

Iran does not want nuclear weapons. Iran just wants to give voice to the voiceless. Iran wants only dignity. Iran would even come back to dialogue with the United States. Sure, the Supreme Leader is very, very angry about bad, bad Donald Trump pulling out of the JCPOA, but Pezeshkian believes only in dialogue. He will fight to make peace, even with the Supreme Leader.

Pletka also assesses the effectiveness of Pezeshkian’s approach. She observes the dissemination of the mullahs’ message (I have omitted Pletka’s links to her sources):

How effective is the Pezeshkian approach? Check it out:

• Sky News wrote this headline [after Israel’s “from the liver to the knee” pager attack]: “Hezbollah has been provoked like never before by Israel and may be tempted to unleash its firepower” (Yes, they deleted it.)

• Here’s the New York Times [September 25]: “Iran has so far refused to be goaded by Israel into a larger regional war that its supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, clearly does not want, analysts say.”

• Here’s the New York Times again [September 27]: “Tensions between Iran and Israel have spiraled after an Israel’s attack on Iran’s Embassy compound in Damascus and the assassination of Hamas’s political leader in Tehran.” Uh, October 7? Hezbollah missile attacks? Houthis?

• Here’s Washington think tank The Stimson Center [September 3]: “Israeli Actions Push Iran Closer to Nuclear Weapons”

There’s tons more, just google “Israel pushing Iran to war.”

Pletka’s report is posted at the What the Hell Is Going On? site under the heading “Meet the president of Iran” (with links). I doubt the press or the think tank need Iran’s framing of the issues to perform as they do, but it doesn’t hurt. I found Pletka’s report to be interesting and informative.