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U.S. Policy Aimed at "Buying Time" with Iran
(Ha'aretz) Chemi Shalev - U.S. policy on Iran is aimed at "buying time and continuing to move this problem into the future, and if you can do that - strange things can happen in the interim," Anthony Blinken, National Security Adviser to Vice President Biden and Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, said on Monday. Blinken told Ha'aretz that the assessments of Israel and the U.S. on Iran are "very close" to each other, "but because we are in different places, even physically, there may be tactical differences between the two countries - but the fundamental strategic position is the same." Blinken said that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad seems "more interested" in defusing tensions with the West than Iran's Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, whose "raison d'etre is confrontation with the U.S." At the same time, Blinken admitted that the U.S. has "extraordinarily imperfect information" about the situation inside Iran's feuding ruling circles.