Affairs of State

American President Barack Obama addressed the three current major concerns afflicting and affecting the United States when he addressed the opening day General Assembly of the United Nations on Tuesday: Iran's nuclear program, Syria's chemical weapons use and that invisible peace between Israel and the Palestinians. It's a tough call to state with any kind of equanimity that one of those issues appears more solvable than the other two. All three seem intractable. Yet the last may be the toughest.

Which doesn't mean that the first two present with any kind of immediately-visible solutions. The new 'moderate', smiley-face president of Iran is different than his predecessor, yes, that can be granted. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's grim smile was a grimace of triumph, that he could state the most vile outrageous intentions and no one had the courage to confront him. Oops, other than Israel and Canada, that is. This new president is gifted with a craftier mind who knows about walking softly, setting aside the whacking stick of Ahmadinejad.

Hasan Rouhani, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, addresses the 68th United Nations General Assembly at UN headquarters, Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2013. (AP Photo/Brendan McDermid, Pool)

Iran, he stated in his address to the General Assembly, seeks peace, not conflict. It abhors strife and abjures terrorism. Hassan Rowhani speaks of an Iran that repudiates weapons of mass destruction; it counteracts the fundamentals of Iran's religious and ethical convictions. He said it, it must be so: "Our national interests make it imperative that we remove any and all reasonable concerns about Iran's peaceful nuclear program", but in the same token Iran will most definitely not cease its nuclear operations.

"My sincere advice would be that when it comes to the government of Iran, we should carefully monitor deeds far more than words", cautioned Prime Minister Stephen Harper, as aware of the wily cunning of the Iranians as are the Israelis whose prime minister has stated: "We will not be fooled by half-measures that merely provide a smoke screen for Iran's continual pursuit of nuclear weapons. And the world should not be fooled either."

Nor should anyone allow themselves to sink gently into the comfort of Iranian President Hassan Rowhani's declarations of a peace-loving, terrorism-decrying Republic of Iran. Its creature militia Hezbollah is the very essence of terrorism on an international scale. Its resolute support for the regime of President Bashar al-Assad in his destruction of his country and mass slaughter of its citizens speaks volumes about Iran's values and orientation.

In this Sunday, Sept. 22, 2013 photo, a Syrian man with more than half his body burnt from an air strike leaves a field hospital to go back home at a village turned into a battlefield with government forces in Idlib province, northern Syria. (AP Photo)
Syrian President al-Assad has graciously stated that his government will permit international experts access now to its chemical weapons sites. While cautioning that rebels might very well block said inspectors from reaching some of those locations. "I'm referring to places where gunmen exist. Those gunmen might want to stop the experts' arrival", warned Mr. Assad. Though opposition fighters have insisted they plan to co-operate with inspectors.

While President Obama was informed by Iranian officials that a face-to-face discussion between himself and the new Iranian president might be "too complicated", as a result of the regime's uncertainty of its reception within Tehran as all the time Mr. Obama might have been thinking along lines of whether or not he would wish to expose himself to directly speaking with Mr. Rowhani, the matter was taken neatly out of his hands.

Never mind, there is always Palestinian Authority President Mahmud Abbas with whom he will have a bilateral meeting, among other important political leaders from other countries pressing upon the American president to recognize their need to have the United States in their corner for whatever issues are of concern to them at any given time. No word yet whether Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu might be present at the Obama-Abbas meeting.

Doubt it.