WASHINGTON (Dispatches) -- In racist remarks, a U.S. senator has expressed doubt as to whether the phrase “good faith” exists in Farsi, claiming he has never seen good faith on the part of Iranians.
The Republican senator, Jim Risch, made the remarks at a press conference as he railed against the Biden administration for trying to revive the 2015 agreement with Iran – a country that he demonized, along with Russia, as “two of our worst enemies on the planet.”
“Look, any dispute can be settled by two parties if there [are] two things present – you only need two things. Number one, you need a common objective. And number two, you need to have parties acting in good faith. You have neither with Iranians,” Risch said.
He claimed that the Iranians aim to acquire a nuclear weapon and time means nothing to them so long as they reach that objective.
“This is a population that has been around for thousands of years. 10 years, 15 years, 100 years doesn’t mean anything to them, as long as they can get to their objective and have a nuclear weapon.
“And secondly, they need to be acting in good faith. Look, I don’t speak Farsi. If I did, I doubt I could use the words ‘good faith.’ I don’t know that they exist because I have never seen good faith on the part of the Iranians.”
Risch’s offensive remarks, which according to observers dehumanize an entire race, are not unprecedented in Washington. Back in 2013, then-U.S. Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman ignited a firestorm in Iran when she said “we know that deception is part of the [Iranian] DNA.”
Interestingly, both Sherman and Risch made their racist comments when discussing Iran’s nuclear program, which has been the subject of decades of U.S.-manufactured crisis despite Tehran’s assertions that it does not seek nuclear weapons.
The U.S. senator added: “So, what do we do about this? Well, the first thing we need to do about this is walk away.”