Rooyesh

Iran’s president stood at the dais, scolding his nation’s enemies. “The army stands against any aggressor and will cut off its hand,” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared to the television cameras as soldiers and tanks filed by on the avenue before him.  The scene at Tehran’s Army Day celebration this week was familiar. But the message was ambiguous. Was the annual military procession a menacing exhibition of Iran’s increasing power in the Middle East or simply a display of the regime’s ability to defend itself against any attacker, as Ahmadinejad suggested?

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