President Obama made a gaffe in an interview with NPR when he called Tehran a “country.” But the gaffe isn’t the news from the interview at all.
Instead, expect people to focus on Obama talking about Iran having a “path” to being “a very successful regional power.”
“[W]hen I came into office, the world was divided and Iran was in the driver’s seat. Now the world’s united because of the actions we’ve taken, and Iran’s the one that’s isolated,” Obama told NPR.
“They have a path to break through that isolation and they should seize it. Because if they do, there’s incredible talent and resources and sophistication inside of — inside of Iran, and it would be a very successful regional power that was also abiding by international norms and international rules, and that would be good for everybody. That would be good for the United States, that would be good for the region, and most of all, it would be good for the Iranian people.”
In the same interview, President Obama acknowledges that Iran sponsors terrorism and wants a nuclear bomb.
“Tehran is a large, sophisticated country that has a track record of state-sponsored terrorism, that we know was attempting to develop a nuclear weapon — or at least the component parts that would be required to develop a nuclear weapon — that has engaged in disruptions to our allies, whose rhetoric is not only explicitly anti-American but also has been incendiary when it comes to its attitude towards the state of Israel,” he said, mistaking Tehran for Iran.
And yet a “path” exists, in Obama’s mind, for this nation to be “a very successful regional power.”
