The (probably) illegitimate President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, sits down with Britain’s Channel 4 reporter Jon Snow:
Snow’s description of his interview is interesting:
To make up for our long journey to find him the presidents aides had setup a grandiose setting for our interview. The gorgeous shrine of the great 14th Century Persian poet Hafeez.
A platform was built, flowers were arranged even chocolates and stuffed dates were on hand. There’s always the fear that the stuffed dates are going to get the better of you and lead to a soft soap encounter.
You don’t see Ahmadinejad in the first flash of his arrival at the shine. A phalanx of other men obliterate his presence and then there he is in his open neck shirt and jacket and he’s sitting in front of me.
He admits to some trouble. Dismisses any question of a nuclear deadline or threats of UN sanctions and whatever the trouble has been at home he seems oblivious of the rising discontent.
But he’s probably right in claiming that nothing very dramatic is going to happen at home at least in the immediate future.