I think one need not be a Farsi speaker to get the sense that the translation is a not particularly skillful one. It reads like unskilled translations read - literal rendering of original language idiom and the like.

See my own blog whinging on about this sort of thing.

On the other hand, even taking as a given that the translation is not skilled, and makes the letter sounded stupider than necessary, the basic content and approach in the context of international diplomatic communications strikes me as bordering on the bizarrely naive.

Although it does sound terribly sincere in its own odd way.

This has the same translation, but it's easier to read. (It's a PDF, though.)

http://medias.lemonde.fr/mmpub/edt/doc/20060509/769629_lettre.pdf

I believe in the inherent right of imbeciles to be rendered in the equivalent style level in other languages.

My gut reaction when I first heard of the letter was that it was a PR stunt, playing off memories of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Reading it now, that seems about right, although it has even less to do with conciliation than I thought, as in not at all.

The full text is also available, both in Farsi and less retarded English than the CNN and Le Monde offerings, on the website of the Presidency of Iran.

I will update the entry witht he better translations when I can (no time or extended access at the moment today, hint to editor overlords, if they can),or add a new one with another discussion re: Iran.

Cute title. Really, the more I learn, the more Ahmadinejad gives me the creeps, but one line in the letter stood out as particularly stupefying:

"Throughout history many countries have been occupied, but I think the establishment of a new country with a new people, is a new phenomenon that is exclusive to our times"

Aside from that statement not being remotely true in the broad sweep of history, isn't it just a little bit stupid to say this to an American?

Aside from that statement not being remotely true in the broad sweep of history, isn't it just a little bit stupid to say this to an American?

It's one of the stranger pro-Palestinian arguments made in MENA, especially as noted, to Americans.

"We are the indigneous people."

"Ok, mmm, so, uh, what's your point?"

Must be difficult to be an Iranian diplomat these days. A little like firefighting. Khatami was a bit more predictable.

Sometimes, historians overrationalize things. I read once how Caligula may have made his horse a senator in Rome 'as a comment on the state of the senate'. Or maybe he was just raving mad.

Patrick Martin of the Globe and Mail commented on Studio 2's foreign affairs panel that this letter wasn't addressed as much to Bush as it was addressed to the "Arab Street", that it wasn't meant as a diplomatic letter at all. I know what some people here think of that term, but otherwise, it's an interesting perspective.

Which term?

Arab Street or diplomatica letter?

I would say, yes, the letter is clearly aimed at the pan-Islamic "street" (not Arab per se), but even so, a better job could have been done.

But Ahmedinejad is clearly, well, a simple man.

Just wanting to point at Jim Henley, who has been absolutely on-point with respect to the Iranian letters: Dear George, Dear George 2, We Get Letters (on the second Iranian letter, offering them "concrete proposals" Condi was complaining about missing) and finally Reasons to be Cheerful.

The "Arab street"

Speaking of expressions that should outlawed: "Moderate Muslim". I *hate* that term.

Sadly, even moderate Westerners insist on using it.