English Quiz 173

(English Quiz 173)

1. Since his election in 2005, Ahmadinejad has become the most prominent Iranian on the global stage since Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini, the guiding hand of the country's 1979 Islamic revolution. Ahmadinejad owes his visibility partly to Iran's rise as a regional power and partly to his penchant for spouting what U.S. Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns calls "the most abhorrent, irresponsible rhetoric of any global leader in many years." It's that rhetoric, along with Iran's meddling in Iraq and pursuit of nuclear technology, that has brought Tehran closer to a confrontation with the U.S. than at any time in the past three decades. "They are saying their words," Ahmadinejad said in an interview with Time two days after the protest at Amir Kabir University, "and I am saying mine."
Q: 試翻 "Ahmadinejad owes his visibility ... in many years."
Q: 試翻 "It's the rhetoric, ... in the past three decades."

2. But politics in Iran is not always what it seems. Behind Ahmadinejad's defiance, a struggle is under way that could determine the future of Tehran's nuclear program, its relationship with Washington and the potential for another war in the Middle East. Inside Iran's political establishment, Ahmadinejad has provoked a counterreaction from those who believe his posturing has damaged Iran's economy and its hopes for a rapprochement with the West. Most Iranian leaders and the public believe in Iran's right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. But a real split has emerged between hard-liners allied with Ahmadinejad, who are willing to risk international sanctions and even the threat of a U.S. military strike in a quest to become a nuclear power, and pragmatists, who might accept limits on Iran's program in order to win political benefits from the West that would preserve the current regime's hold on power. Reflecting the success of recent U.N. sanctions against Tehran, officials in Iran say the consensus seems to be tilting toward less confrontation, more negotiation.
Q: 試翻 "Reflecting the success ... more negotiation."

3. No one believes a breakthrough is imminent. Burns tells Time that the U.S. is close to winning a consensus in the Security Council for a second set of sanctions targeting arms sales and export credits to Iran. "They need to suspend their enrichment program before we will sit down and talk to them," he says. "That condition is well known to the Iranians, and we will stand by it." The opposition to Ahmadinejad has yet to coalesce into a political movement. But, says George Perkovich, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, "it has given internationalists in Iran space to engage the West, though they ... will be afraid to settle for less than Ahmadinejad rejected." Western diplomats hope those pragmatists will ultimately gain the upper hand, but their ascendancy would likely be halted if Tehran and Washington went to war. And so the question is whether, having got so much wrong about the region over the past four years, the U.S. and its allies can get this one right.
Q: 試翻 "The opposition ... a political movement."