Updated, 3:05 p.m. Scroll to bottom.

For his preference for saber-rattling in open-neck shirts and ill-fitting suits, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran is the unlikely world leader who draws a wide range of critics — from The White House to the fashion pages of newspapers.

So it was with Iran’s firing of a rocket to inaugurate its space program today, which was decried as “unfortunate” by Dana Perino, the White House press secretary. But so far, there has been no comment on the 3-D glasses that Mr. Ahmadinejad donned during a visit to the new space center, in the desert of western Iran.

Mr. Ahmadinejad declared that Iran had “joined the world’s top 11 countries possessing space technology to build satellites, and launch rockets into space,” and asserted that the rocket had reached space. But there was widespread skepticism.

Wired noted that a similar rocket failed to ascend to orbital altitude, and The Associated Press served up a reminder that the country’s technological achievements have been greatly overstated in the past.

Is Iran’s leader seeing his space program through rose-colored glasses? While the experts work that one out, the photograph above proves that he most certainly was for a moment today — with one eye, anyway.

Update: John Schwartz, who covers space for The Times, sent some more information about how NASA uses 3-D glasses via E-mail: