Maziar Bahari: The U.S. & Iran

NOW on the News | PBS

Iranian journalist Maziar Bahari -- who is Newsweek magazine's Iranian correspondent -- said in a NOW on PBS exclusive podcast that Iranians were relieved at the small sign of hope that the nuclear standoff between his country and the West could be resolved. "People are just happy that there won't be a war, that the country will not be attacked ... like Iraq was invaded," Bahari told NOW's Maria Hinojosa in a web-exclusive audio interview from his home in Tehran. In his interview with NOW's Maria Hinojosa, Bahari said the main concern for Iran's future lies not in its nuclear standoff or relationship with the West but in the survival of its economy. "I'm mostly worried about what's happening inside the country, that the government is just intoxicated on oil money, and people are just apathetic at the moment," Bahari said. Bahari argues his presidents and President Bush have more in common than most people would think. "I think they're very similar people. They're both very provincial politicians," he said. Bahari believes both Bush and Ahmadinejad lack a broad world vision of the world, including a solid knowledge of historical events. "I don't think that your president really has a much better perception of the world and what's going on in the world either," he said of Bush.