Ayatollah Khamenei: American Mideast Policy a Threat

Iranian Supreme Ruler Ayatollah Ali Khamenei hosted Russian President Vladimir Putin in Tehran on Monday and declared US policies in the Middle East to be a threat to both Iran and Russia. The two allies agreed that the Americans should refrain from influencing events in Syria. Putin was quoted as saying that, “No one from the outside can and should enforce models of government on the Syrian people and determine who should be in charge. Only the Syrian people should decide that.” In a note of irony, Khamenei’s comments, while obviously intended as criticism of the US, were arguably not found to be offensive by the White House, when the Ayatollah said that the US seeks “to achieve through diplomacy and at the negotiating table the goals they could not achieve by military means in Syria.”