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Iran's Negotiator Finds a Message in America's Ballots and Endorses His Translation
· New York time
Iran's chief negotiator, Mohammed Bagher Ghalibaf, said Americans had voted no to war in the US midterms and that he endorsed the message. His comments followed Democratic gains that gave the party control of Congress. President Trump has acknowledged that the Iran war played a part in Republican losses, although the two statements are not the same assessment of why Americans voted as they did. Ghalibaf's interpretation puts an American election directly into the language of a conflict with international consequences. A negotiator normally looks for signals from officials across a table; this time, he has offered a reading of millions of individual ballots. The convenience is obvious: a message described as coming from voters can be carried straight into a foreign-policy argument. The result could affect the debate in Washington, where a new congressional majority will have more opportunities to scrutinize the administration. It does not give Tehran or any other capital a single, certified explanation for each voter's choice. Elections are large enough to contain more than one complaint, even when a diplomat would prefer a tidy sentence. Ghalibaf has supplied the sentence anyway. The ballots were cast in the United States, but the interpretations are already doing international travel, each packed with the priorities of the person holding the luggage.
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