Dreaming of Tehran

Listening to Ahmadinejad from Tehran's Freedom Square (a beautiful structure we spent a few late evenings enjoying from the park below during our last trip to Iran) via CNN this afternoon, I cannot help but reiterate my previous opinion that Iran should be entitiled to develop nuclear power for it's nation without threats or interference from the first world, if for no other reason than to avoid the obviously hypocritical stance of the U.S. - a nation with the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons on the planet - and nuclear power and weapons are far flung, although the administration would have us believing otherwise; that they may as well be the same thing.
I've always enjoyed listening to Ahmadinejad speak - arriving at a more realistic understanding of his message when translated by my husband who has no reason to skew the President's words toward the maniacal verbal wanderings the Bush agenda would have the American public believe are being spoken. His philosophy, while consistently Islamic in foundation and tone, is very easily generalized to encompass all peoples and faiths (the country is populated by all manner of religions, including Christians, Jews, and the Mulsim interfaith). He has nothing to prove, and will not be cowed - good for him, I say.
In any case, nothing Ahmadinejad has said today sounds particularly hard-line or tyrannical...but it's up to the American media to translate and interpret the words of the Iranian President with honesty.
It will be interesting to see how the speech is handled and presented in the West via the various media outlets; one can only hope...
They are already speculating that his lack of message 'means something more.' As if anything and everything was fraught with hidden agenda. They are desperate to find something with which to pick him and his words apart.

At the same time, with this renewed focus on Iran at the anniversary of their revolution, the media reminds me through the lens how beautiful the country is and how warm the people are and I am so excited to be able to look forward just three and a half months to when we will once again wake up each morning in our spacious Tehran apartment, spending our days beneath Tochal - the snowy mountain that looms literally in our backyard, and enjoy our Persian family.