Friday, December 31, 2010
Elder of Ziyon
I can't wait for the YouTube video leaked from the Mossad cameras that witnessed this....The chief of the Revolutionary Guard heatedly slapped Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in early 2010, a leaked U.S. cable revealed.
According to the February 2009 diplomatic cable, Revolutionary Guard Chief of Staff Mohammed Ali Jafari held Ahmadinejad responsible for the post-election "mess" in 2009.
It quotes an Iranian watcher in Baku, Azerbaijan, who connected that Ahmadinejad felt that in the aftermath of the post-election street protests "people feel suffocated."
The source said that in a gathering with his national security council, Ahmadinejad "mused that to defuse the situation it may be obligatory to allow more personal and social freedoms, including more freedom of the press."
This provoked a fiery response from Jafari, according to the cable:
"You are wrong! (In fact) it is You who created this mess! And now you say give more autonomy to the press?!," he said.
Jafari, according to the cable, then slapped Ahmadinejad in the face "causing chaos and an immediate call for a smash in the meeting."
It took the intervention of Ayatollah Ahmad Janati to get Jafari and Ahmadinejad back to the table, the report said.
Update: Commenter Gerrit points out that the article's timing doesn't make sense. Chances are that the cable was written in February 2010, not 2009. Unfortunately the cable is not available on the Wikileaks site and some newspapers are getting the cables from other sources, making it difficult to check the facts.
(h/t Noah Pollak via Twitter)
