Iran's Governing Elite and the Holocaust

A meeting between the two presidents would be a significant breakthrough.

In recent days we've seen in quick succession:

(1) a report that Iran's leaders were acknowledging the historic fact that there was such a thing as a Nazi effort to eliminate the Jews;
(2) the unraveling of that report as a bit of overly hopeful mistranslation;
(3) frenzied attempt by the U.S. administration to arrange a photo op of the heads of state of the US and Iran shaking hands;
(4) the failure of those efforts, and finally;
(5) the hyping of a telephone call in which the two men finally do make some sort of contact.

What, if anything, can or should we make of all of this?

If I were a suspicious sort, the sort given to conspiracy theories, I might say that the fix was in for (5) even before reports (1) above. Reports (1) were in some sense planted, in order to prepare public opinion for the grand breakthrough that we're supposed to believe (5) was.

That's if I were a suspicious sort of fellow ... but instead I'll simply observe that the notion that there was no Holocaust seems to serve a critical role as part of the legitimating ideology of the crowd running Iran at this time. They cannot lightly abandon it.

The one step forward, two steps back game they played -- or someone[s] outside of Iran played on their behalf -- was more than a little unseemly.

I admire Weiss' take on it (the second link above). He is as disinclined to suffer nonsense in silence as anyone I know.

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