Friday, September 16, 2016

Former Iraq Premier Jaafari’s Gift For Verbiage


Iraq’s former prime minister and current foreign minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari is infamous for his verbiage. The man should have been a philosopher or a writer rather than a politician as he is given to go on and on about esoteric topics. While he was in power in 2005 for example, he ran into an American diplomat and decided to give her marriage advice. Jaafari told her that physical appearance deteriorated with age, but moral beauty lasted forever and that was what she should look for in a husband. Another example was when Jaafari made his first trip to Washington to meet President George Bush. Upon greeting the president the premier went on to talk about Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and whom he thought were the best presidents of the United States. Bush was not amused, as he wanted to talk about the situation in Iraq, which was heading towards civil war at the time. That eventually happened, but not before Jaafari had his say about American history. Jaafari is still given to these long streams of consciousness.

SOURCES

Gordon, Michael and Trainor, General Bernard, The Endgame, The Inside Story Of The Struggle For Iraq, From George W. Bush To Barack Obama, New York, Pantheon, 2012

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