Iran: US will seek green light to open base in Tehran

Ewen MacAskill
London Guardian
Friday, July 18, 2008

The Bush administration said yesterday that it welcomed the prospect of increased “people-to-people” contact between Americans and Iranians, as it pushed ahead at speed with plans to establish a diplomatic presence in Tehran.

The White House and the State Department refused to deny a Guardian report that a decision has been taken to set up a US-interests section in Tehran, marking the first return of its diplomats to the city since the 1979-81 Iranian revolution.

A source familiar with the decision-making said the Bush administration has either already, or would over the next few days, lodge a formal request with the Iranian government to set up an interests section, a halfway-house to an embassy.

(Article continues below)

Sean McCormack, the US state department spokesman, responded to questions from reporters by saying: “We are not going to discuss the internal workings of the US government.”

But he went on to pave the way for an announcement by saying that the US is keen to encourage “people-to-people exchanges” and listed a series of contacts between Americans and Iranians, including visits by artists and a planned trip by Iran’s Olympic team to the US.

Full article here

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8 Responses to “Iran: US will seek green light to open base in Tehran”

1. Concerned Citizen Says:
   July 18th, 2008 at 4:38 am

   “We are not going to discuss the internal workings of the US government.”
   =============================

   Is this government not For the People, By the People? Wake up America.

2. chris diminie Says:
   July 18th, 2008 at 6:29 am

   “We are not going to discuss the internal workings of the US government.” Who does this guy think he is? The U.S. Government isn’t a private corporation! “Internal workings”??? So the people are “external”? Not a part of the Government? You would think that citizens would be in the loop. Citizens treated as foreign…

   To follow the corporate comparison for 1 more point, if the U.S. were a corporation, the people would be stockholders and entitled to a vote and some answers. Not a suggestion of course, an ironic musing, my real suggestion would be a Constitutional Republic with some kind of law that allowed the people to defend themselves against corrupt representatives…oh wait

3. ThePatriot Says:
   July 18th, 2008 at 11:01 am

   I have to wonder if opening and Embassy in Iran is a Tojan Horse.

   We need a reason to attack Iran. Any bets that we will attack our own Embassy and use it as an excuse. What better “False Flag” operation than a repeat of our last venture there.

4. FK Says:
   July 18th, 2008 at 11:04 am

   More twisting of words from prison planet…”base” makes it sound like we are opening up a military base…

5. sid Says:
   July 18th, 2008 at 4:02 pm

   > More twisting of words from prison planet…”base” makes
   > it sound like we are opening up a military base…

   more twisting of the facts by the anti-truth brigade.
   that is the title of the original guardian article, idiot!

6. JEH Says:
   July 18th, 2008 at 8:40 pm

   Trojan Horse, definitely! Would you trust a gov that has vowed to destroy you eventually?
   They will use this as an excuse to set up a black ops headquarters using “diplomatic immunity” routine. On one hand the congress votes to overturn Iran’s gov through massive black ops funding to promote terrorism , but the other hand grabs them and pulls them into the web. What kind of policy is this? The usual I assume?

7. Gregory Fegel Says:
   July 19th, 2008 at 12:54 am

   To paraphrase George Orwell, “Iran is out ally. Iran has always been our ally.”

8. Douglas in Oakland Says:
   July 19th, 2008 at 1:11 pm

   Hey what happened to Bush’s hard line of not talking to Iran without preconditions?

   There needs to be a mass voting out of incumbents in the Congress. I hope people are beginning to see this. As a group of free citizens, we could accomplish multitudes more without this riduculous beast of a government always in the way and working against us.

   Join Ron Paul’s Campaign for Liberty. Free to join!

   http://www.campaignforliberty.com