A great column by Farideh Farhi going after Michael Rubin, the unreconstructed neoconservative (are there any other kind?). Farhi says Rubin is pushing a confrontation with Iran by twisting Iranian statements about its nuclear goals, and in one case directly misreading Persian.
Of course, there is always the possibility that
Rubin's Persian is not very good (or his translators are not very
good). For instance, in his reaction to one of Roger Cohen's pieces in NYT, Rubin writes in the National Review Corner blog:"One
of Cohen’s interlocutors, at least according to his February 5, 2009
column, was former IRGC [Revolutionary Guard Corps] Chief Mohsen Rezai. Here is Rezai in today’s
Iranian press: “Our enmity with the U.S. has no end." Cohen painted him
as a bit more reasonable."
Rezai in fact said exactly the opposite, using a double negative. He said: "Our enmity with the U.S. is not without end"!
Rubin responds in a tetchy way here to Farhi's overall column, but fails to address the specific charge of misreading that Rezai quote. Have I missed something, Michael Rubin? If not, when will you respond? Thanks to Ali Gharib and Jim Lobe's blog on this.
