"Meal from Hell"

Well...what did you expect when you put high ranking officials from the United States and Iran in a room together for dinner at Davos? Reuters reports on the "Meal from Hell".  Here are some tidbits, (but read the whole thing):

Call it the meal from hell.

A World Economic Forum dinner designed to promote dialogue between Iran and the United States on Friday night began with a comic strip series of diplomatic and gastronomic blunders, and ended with a sharp exchange over nuclear weapons.

The star guest, U.S. Senator Joe Biden, ranking Democrat on the Senate foreign relations committee, was missing. The organizers kept saying he was on his way [he went to the wrong hotel, the article later notes].

Moderator David Ignatius, a Washington Post columnist, apologized for the fact that wine had been served, upsetting the Muslim guests. Waiters cleared the offending glasses.

They also removed the menus since the hotel had planned to serve non-hallal meat, breaching Islamic dietary rules. Even the soup spoons were withdrawn -- erroneously, it transpired.

The questioning quickly focused on Iran's disputed nuclear program and the risk of a U.S. or Israeli military strike on its atomic facilities.

Kharrazi swore anew the program was purely for peaceful, civilian purposes, contrary to U.S. and Israeli charges that it is a front for a secret drive to build nuclear weapons. 

Perhaps feeling the atmosphere was becoming too heated, hotel staff opened the windows, sending a blast of icy alpine air (outdoor temperature -15 C) through the room.

[Senator Joseph] Biden finally arrived an hour and 20 minutes late, having gone to the wrong hotel. His wife's figure-hugging leather pants and a top that left her arms bare from the shoulders [hmm...I can't find any pictures on the AP wire] were in stark contrast to Vice-President Masoumeh Ebtekar's all-enveloping chador, although both wore black.  [Flashback to the "outrage" over Vice President's clothing choice at Auschwitz...but my friend Matt at Blogs for Bush explains and offers his opinion].

Biden, who had a long private meeting with Kharrazi at Davos last year, said Washington should join three major European nations in trying to negotiate a deal under which Iran would end nuclear enrichment in return for security and economic benefits.

He cast doubt on Kharrazi's assurances, saying he could understand why there could be consensus in Iran on the need for nuclear arms because it lived in a dangerous neighborhood.

Both Iran and the U.S. administration must "grow up" and talk to each other to get off "the course of unintended consequences," Biden said.

WOW...what I wouldn't have given to be a fly on the wall in that room....