First off, check out Colbert later tonight. It was a blast. And I’ll be on AC360 Later in an hour with Bill Kristol. Good times.
Today, we aired various indications that Rouhani is serious about opening a dialogue with the West. Today, in an interview with Ann Curry, he has gone even further. Money quote:
“In its nuclear program, this government enters with full power and has complete authority,” Rouhani told Ann Curry, NBC News national and international correspondent and anchor at large, in his first interview with a U.S. news outlet since his election. “The problem won’t be from our side,” he said at the presidential compound in Tehran. “We have sufficient political latitude to solve this problem.” Asked whether Iran would ever build a nuclear weapon, Rouhani noted that the country has repeatedly pledged that “under no circumstances would we seek any weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons, nor will we ever.”
Syria was a dress rehearsal for the real deal: a normalization of relations with Iran in return for clear and open international inspections of all its suspect sites. That would transform the current global dynamic, and lead us away from the threat of war to the possibility of a real peace between then people of America and the largely pro-American people of Iran.
We covered the developments here and here, while airing a fascinating video about Iran’s Revolutionary Guards fighting for their God in Syria – while regarding all Arabs as sub-human.
We raised Mike Allen’s publication of a press release by Fox under his own byline; we noted how bro culture keeps evolving; and how blogging has made me a better writer. Plus: the moment the US almost nuked itself.
The most popular post of the day remained Meep Meep, Motherfuckers from Sunday night. Second was this super cool political ad.
See you in the morning.
(Photo: Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe of Pet Shop Boys perform on the stage in concert at MasterCard Center on August 22, 2013 in Beijing, China. By ChinaFotoPress via Getty Images. I’ll be posting a review soon.)
The Dish 