Word: ahmadinejad
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...swing through Latin America this week by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has prompted the Obama Administration and U.S. congressional leaders to signal their displeasure with the Iranian leader's regional hosts. President Obama wrote to Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on the eve of the visit, reiterating the U.S. position on Iran's nuclear program, and urging the Brazilian leader to back it. Washington's pique is hardly surprising, since the visit comes at a moment when the U.S. is seeking to rally an international united front to coerce Iran into limiting its nuclear ambitions...
...without preconditions," Dr. Timothy Power, a lecturer at Oxford University's Centre for Brazilian Studies, recalled this week. "He said he would and Hillary [Clinton] jumped on him and said he was being naive. Well, Lula is just doing what Obama said he would do." (See the top 10 Ahmadinejad-isms...
...Lula enjoys considerable respect internationally, and the incorrigible talker believes problems can be resolved through dialogue. Before Ahmadinejad arrived, Lula pointedly declared, "It is important that someone sits down with Iran, talks with Iran and tries to establish a balance so we can get back to a kind of normality in the Middle East...
...Lula is desperate for Brazil to take on a more prominent role in world affairs, and would like nothing more than to bask in the prestige of playing peacemaker. The Brazilian leader gave Ahmadinejad the red-carpet treatment at their meeting Monday, telling him Brazil supports Iran's nuclear program "for peaceful means." (See pictures of Pope Benedict XVI's Visit to Brazil...
...Ironically, however, one reason among others for Iran's reversal after initially approving the deal was that Green Movement leaders had criticized it. Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the opposition candidate who claims to have won the disputed election, criticized the proposal negotiated by Ahmadinejad's team at Vienna, warning that if implemented, it would negate the work of thousands of Iranian scientists. Opposition figures and analysts say his response was merely an attempt to play spoiler and prevent the regime from benefiting politically from a deal with the West. Still, nuclear diplomacy with the West has effectively become a political football...