PUTNEY — Kudos to Randolph T. Holhut for his excellent summary of Dr. Seyed Hossein Mousavian's masterly speech to the Windham World Affairs Council in favor of the Iran nuclear nonproliferation agreement.
Noting that Israel was unmentioned, Mr. Holhut overlooked that Iran's Persian Gulf neighbors Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, also official supporters of the Trump administration's withdrawal from this agreement, also were unmentioned.
Introducing Dr. Mousavian, an Iranian-American gentleman publicly insulted the president of the United States.
I wondered what would happen to him in Iran if he publicly insulted its president: Anyone who insults any appointed or elected official or civil servant at any level of government “while they are performing their duties, or in connection with their duties [...] shall be sentenced to 74 lashes or a fine of fifty thousand to one million Rials” (Islamic Penal Code of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Book Five, Article 609; English translation by the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center).
World affairs never are as simple as presented.