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"U.S. eager to talk to Iran, whoever winner is"

4:34 PM, Jun 15, 2009 • By MICHAEL GOLDFARB
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That's the headline in the Tehran Times, and the paper quotes a State Department official to back it up:

he U.S. will pursue dialogue with Iran whether incumbent President Ahmadinejad or his rival, Mir Hossein Mousavi, emerges as winner, a State Department official says.

"The president's decision to engage Iran was not based on a particular electoral result. We are going to engage the Iranian government whether it is led by one faction or the other," said a senior U.S. State Department official speaking on condition of anonymity, before the partial results Of Iran's Presidential elections were announced.

Former prime minister, Mir Hossein Mousavi, who had earlier claimed victory, has so far gained 32.57 percent of the vote.

"This is going to be hard and complex, regardless of who is elected president. There are a lot of different factions and mixed views on the idea of engaging the Great Satan," added the official, Reuters reported.

The quote is suspicious, to say the least, but the fact that Iran's state-run media can even put out a story like this is evidence of the Obama administration's weak response. Maybe Obama will come out swinging at his 5 o'clock presser, but so far there is no indication that the violent suppression of Iranians protesting against this corrupt and illegitimate regime will have any impact on the president's stated desire for greater engagement with Tehran. And that allows the Iranian press to write stories like this one.

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