In response to President Obama’s recent diplomatic overtures to the Muslim world, Iran’s spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei yesterday decreed that the United States should be downgraded from ‘Great Satan’ to ‘Quite Large Demon’.
Though wary of re-establishing diplomatic relations between Tehran and Washington in the short term, Khamenei said it was time to ‘think outside the box’ regarding America’s degree of responsibility for the existence of evil in the universe.
The mood of partial reconciliation was also obvious before Friday prayers at the University of Tehran Central Mosque, where there were chants of ‘Nasty Cold to America’. One worshipper said, ‘It doesn’t trip off the tongue quite as well as “Death”, but is more in tune with the times’. In front of cheering bystanders he then crumpled an American flag, explaining that since Obama’s victory, burning it seems ‘a bit over the top’.
Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was surprisingly one of the first world leaders to send Obama a letter of congratulations after his election victory in November last year. In it he praised Obama for ‘demonstrating clear vision’, ‘offering the hope of greater peace and understanding between peoples’, and ‘not being a Jew’.
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