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[Lee Haslup <biglee AT haslups.com>]

The Agence France-Presse news service has a slightly different story on 
this. It includes a few more words from the statement by Rowhani. This 
version suggests that he was merely trying to make a neutral statement 
and that any criticism of the Democrats was part of a balanced critique 
of both parties.

       TEHRAN, Oct 19 (AFP) - It makes no real difference to Iran
       whether US President George W. Bush or Democrat contender John
       Kerry wins the presidential elections, a senior Iranian official
       said Tuesday.

       “*It makes no difference for us which of the two parties wins
       the elections*,” Iran’s top national security official Hassan
       Rowhani said in an interview on state television.

       “We have not seen any good coming from the Democrats, so we
       won’t be happy if the Democrats win,” he said.


Paul Smith wrote:

> Evan Zimmerman wrote:
>
> > I'm not much for Tehran meddling in American politics, but I have to
> > admit with all of the 'terrorists support John Kerry' type rhetoric
> > going around, the irony is rich:
> >
> > "The head of Iran's security council said Tuesday that the re-election
> > of President Bush was in Tehran's best interests, despite the
> > administration's axis of evil label, accusations that Iran harbors
> > al-Qaida terrorists and threats of sanctions over the country's
> > nuclear ambitions."
> > "We do not desire to see Democrats take over."
>
>
> Right, well, I think that's really just a function of the fact that 
> they don't like us very much. :) That, and Iran has had much better 
> experiences having their way with men like Bob McFarlane, Caspar 
> Weinberger and John Poindexter than they have arguing over embargoes 
> and human rights with people like Madeleine Albright.
>
> --P