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November 11th, 2009

Source: Enduring America

On Monday we reported the curious tale that a conservative Iranian politician had claimed in an interview that President Ahmadinejad — presumably unwittingly — had met US “spies”, posing as journalists and scholars, in one of his meetings in New York. Gary Sick, the former US Government official who is now an academic at Columbia University, follows up:

In [a post] on October 26 I denounced the fact that my fellow academic Kian Tajbakhsh was sentenced to 15 years in prison in Iran, in part because he had met with me and because I was falsely accused of being a CIA agent. I commented ironically:

I have been in meetings with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on four different occasions over the past three years. I have spent at least nine hours with him, much more than I ever spent with Kian….Iranian security officials are notably lacking in any sense of irony or humor. But I do wonder whether President Ahmadinejad is being considered for indictment because of his extensive contacts with me over the past four years.

I have now discovered that my words have proved truer than I could ever have imagined.

[On 9 November] it was reported by Scott Lucas’ blog Enduring America that the Iranian Labor News Agency features an interview with conservative activist Mojtaba Shakeri, who says that some of the journalists and scholars who met with Ahmadinejad, presumably during the President’s trip to New York, were undoubtedly CIA operatives. This in turn was picked up by the opposition press, which is accusing Ahmadinejad of consorting with CIA agents.

My ironic comment seems to have been transformed into a straight-faced criticism of Mr. Ahmadinejad with an utter disregard not only for the truth but also for any appreciation of the humor of the accusation.

It is impossible to parody a system that constantly parodies itself by its actions and words.