The Iranian Spectacle: An Istanbul Dispatch

The Iranian delegation entered the conference with a thud. Parviz Davudi, the first vice-president of the Islamic Republic of Iran -- flanked by several burly, bearded bodyguards and surrounded by a coterie of Iranian diplomats in Nehru collars, camera-wielding journalists from the Islamic Republic's state news media and a few assorted hangers-on -- plowed through the ornate Ciragan Palace Hotel lobby in Istanbul, brusquely pushing past the assembled political, business and media elite who gathered for the November 2006 World Economic Forum -- an annual event that showcases Turkey's economic achievements to the "Davos crowd."

Coffee-sipping delegates looked on with what seemed like a touch of wonder and dash of fear. One of the Iranian bodyguards elbowed his way past a small group of chatting participants, spilling coffee on a Swiss delegate. A Turkish journalist nearly fell over to avoid a crash with another bodyguard. A Lebanese businessman joked: "The Iranians, it seems, have once again sent 'the dream team'." A British banker chuckled. The Swiss scurried to the bathroom to clean his shirt, tsk-tsking on the way.

It was an inauspicious beginning to what proved to be an even more inauspicious afternoon. On stage with Ahmad Nazif, the prime minister of Egypt and Abdullah Gul, the foreign minister of Turkey, Parviz Davudi threw a few elbows himslef and, as one red-faced Iranian member of the delegation whispered to me later, "embarrassed us all."

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