Ahmadinejad defends anti-Israel tirade

[bemildred]

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has stood by his latest attack on Israel and asserted the world was "on the verge of change".

The president said on Monday Western powers "know that any change in Palestine will change the world's political, economic and cultural arrangement, and therefore they support the Zionist regime's most wicked deeds".

"The world is on the verge of change, and more than before we can hear the sound of this present, unstable order breaking down," the student news agency ISNA quoted him as telling a conference entitled Supporting the Islamic Revolution of Palestine.

"If the massacre of the Jews in Europe is true and used as an excuse to support Zionists, why should the Palestinians pay the price?" he added, repeating a comment that has widely been interpreted as support for deniers of the Holocaust.

al Jazeera

[Greeby]

1. Does Ahmadinejad work for the neo-cons or something?

Stupid comments like this are gonna give them their wet-dream of an excuse to invade

[bemildred]

2. I doubt it.

My present inference is that he thinks he's in a strong position and can say what he likes. So far I don't see much reason to think he is wrong about that, although he may well over-estimate how much he can get away with.

[bemildred]

4. The thing is this, he's the elected leader of a large nation.

He is therefore, almost by definition, a practiced dissembler and liar.

If he is spouting this stuff repreatedly, it's not because he's been overcome with emotion and just bursts out with it.

[bemildred]

5. Compare him with Mr. Chavez in Venezuela, who also delights in twisting

the tails of his enemies. As his power has waxed, so has his rhetoric. What you see here is evidence for the statement that Iran has been the big geo-political winner from the Bushites boondoggle in Iraq.

[applegrove]

7. Iran obviously wants the occupation to continue. Why else would

he say such things.

[bemildred]

9. Yes, of course, it's been very good for them.

The longer we stay, the better it gets. And while we are there, we are hamstrung as far as taking the initiative anywhere else, too much of our power is committed there.

[applegrove]

10. Darfur is the only thing that comes to mind.

[bemildred]

12. Doesn't ring any bells with me. Unless you mean Darfur==Iraq==Atrocity.

Or something of that sort.

[applegrove]

14. You said:

"And while we are there, we are hamstrung as far as taking the initiative anywhere else". I meant Darfur is the only thing that comes to mind that Nato should be involved with.

[bemildred]

16. I was thinking more of Venezuela, Syria, Iran itself, Bolivia etc.

I would not have thought of Darfur, but then I wasn't thinking of NATO.
But now that you explain, I see your point.

[applegrove]

17. Use the sarcasm smilie. I didn't know how to take your statement.

Upon further thought - I should have realized it was so. Sorry.:hi:

[bemildred]

19. I'm perfectly serious. No sarcasm intended. nt

[sabra]

3. two nut jobs budding heads...

[bemildred]

6. Very good discussion in Asia Times:

Yet Ahmadinejad's primary audience was the Muslim world. Indeed, he hardly cares about what the West thinks about him. Moreover, he spoke in Mecca, on the sidelines of the extraordinary summit meeting of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC). He has made an important point - he is in sync with the Muslim opinion that despite the ambivalence of some pro-American Arab regimes, there is a near-insurmountable barrier at present in reconciling with what today's Israel has come to represent.

Nothing graphically reflects this paradigm more than an interview published recently by the prominent Arabic newspaper al-Hayat with Fouad Siniora, the cosmopolitan prime minister of Lebanon: "I, Fouad Siniora, am a Lebanese, Arab patriot. I will not stand with Israel against Syria, or accept seeing Lebanon become a center for weakening Syria."

We are also seeing in Ahmadinejad's remarks a colossal breakdown of the "dialogue of civilizations" - and Iran's own disillusionment with it, though former president Mohammad Khatami had first mooted the idea some years ago with noble intentions. And that has everything to do with American regional policies in the Middle East.

It is tempting to point a finger at Ahmadinejad's alleged impetuosity as having prompted his remarks about Jews and the Holocaust, and to rush into wishful thinking that he was thereby placing himself out on a political limb in Iran's labyrinthine corridors of power. But Tehran lost no time in signalling it wasn't so. Ahmadinejad was hardly winding his way back to Tehran from Mecca when Iran's religious leadership at the highest levels also spoke out about Zionism.

Asia Times

[applegrove]

8. He obviously want the American Occupation to continue so Sunnis

& Shiites never get together in Iraq.

[bemildred]

11. I don't think he gives a shit about the Sunni and Shi'ia in Iraq.

Or not much, why should he? It's the US being there he likes, it weakens the US and it weakens Iraq, and it strengthens Irans hand in multiple ways.

[applegrove]

13. Well that is the same thing. He likes US being there because it

keeps the Sunnis & the Shiites from having to make do with each other and benefits Iran in the long term - as they would like to influence the Shiites in Iraq. Iranians are not arab shiites - but shiites none the less.

More influence - more power (oil). As long as the Sunnis do not get together with the Shiites and have to find peace together. It benefits Iran. And Iran is very aware of geopolitics - that is why they started a oil trading market in Terahn.

[bemildred]

15. Well, I disagree. As I said, I don't think he cares much about internal

Iraqi politics, as long as it doesn't interefere with his agenda. The pro-Iranian factionalism in Iraq seems to be indigenous, although Iran supports it, and based a good deal in religious rivalries rather that nationalist sentiments: Najaf vs Qom rather than Baghdad vs Tehran.

Your second paragraph seems correct to me, at least in the sense that Iran likes a weakened and friendly Iraq.

[applegrove]

18. Oh he is very worried about the seculars in Iran who are many. Right

now hamstrung by the Islamic extremists. But not for long.

He cares very much for a shiite religious nation next door. That would extend & re-inforce Islamism in the region.

[bemildred]

20. Well, you're certainly entitled to your opinion. I don't see it though.nt

[applegrove]

21. America has been supporting the secular part of Iran with TV and such.

They are likely a majority. Iran is under duress. So for that reason - it is a way of shoring up support. So that the Islamism can be fine tuned and controlled in the region.

[bemildred]

22. Well, the fellow at Asia Times seems to think that's wishful thinking.

But time will tell I suppose.

[applegrove]

24. Well - that is it. Time will tell. Iranian theocrats are interested in

keeping power until the end of time. At no point in the future - when opposition wins an elections and seculars get power - is that acceptable to them. Why they want a bigger self-reinforcing islamic empire. And Shiites in Iraq would do fine.

[jzodda]

23. Hes had a terrible first few months and it will get worse

His lack of experience and competence is actually fun to watch. He makes statements off the cuff that drive people to distraction, he nominated people for cabinet posts with no experience beyond serving in the revolutionary guards and has got himself in a position that I would hardly have expected. Even though the hardliners took back the Parliament by preventing a free election they have actually found this guy to be too much for even them.

They are talking openly of his impeachment. Hardliners impeaching another hardliner. Its really something to watch.

The old saying "you get what you pay for" never sounded more true. By preventing and limiting the choices for people to vote for in the last election they wound up with this guy who is finding ways to turn his government and his country into a laughingstock beyond the reputation it already found itself.

Even more remarkable is that this guy has very little power overall. The power rests in un-elected clerics who the majority of the people in Iran despise. In my last visit there the venom which people spouted at the clerics in private was remarkable.