[Los Angeles Times] Jeffrey Fleishman and Borzou Daragahi - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may be the diplomatic equivalent of damaged goods now that he's won a much-disputed reelection. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev publicly greeted Ahmadinejad at a recent meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, but did not grant him a private meeting as he had the leaders of Pakistan and Afghanistan. In Belarus, the Iranian leader was met not by President Alexander Lukashenko, but by the speaker of the upper house of parliament. In the Middle East, where Arab regimes have long been wary of Iran's ambitions, authorities in Jordan withdrew licenses for two Iranian news organizations this week and the sultan of Oman reportedly canceled a trip to Tehran. Iran's future relations with the world will depend on the "regime's ability to recover from the deep separations that are currently present within its ranks," said Wahid Abdul Magid, a Middle East affairs analyst at the Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo.
2009-07-03 06:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive