Ahmadinejad's visit to Columbia University has been getting an incredible amount of attention in the media, political and activist circles around the country. As someone who was born in Iran and lived in Tehran for 17 years, I want to give you my assessment of how I believe Ahmadinejad's visit will be viewed elsewhere in the world with the main conclusion that as he said his goodbyes to the audience in the university's hostile environment, one thing became clear: regardless of what you may think of his values (or lack thereof), he proved to be the savviest person in the room.
Let's begin with the massive protests. It was no surprise that there were thousands of people in the streets of New York protesting unconditional freedom of speech and his right to speak his mind. He knew that the city was home to over two million Jews, and that he would face massive protests. But that is precisely the martyr-like image that he was intending to create. Standing on that stage after a hostile introduction by the Columbia University president and in the face of thousands of protesters may have made him look lonely and illegitimate in the West. But to the eyes of many around the world, he looked like a hero and someone who was speaking what they are likely to consider "the truth" in the face of a bully. On August 31, this blogger wrote that one of the main reasons why the United States has not effectively addressed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and vetoed 47 UN Security Council Resolutions against Israel (14 under Bush II, 7 under Clinton, 7 under Bush I, and 19 under Reagan) is the strength of Jewish lobby in America and "the willingness of millions of Jews in America, including many liberal ones who normally support sensible foreign policies, to roll over, make an exception, keep silent and even vocally cheerlead America's support for the Israeli occupation." Massive protests in New York very much reinforced that assertion as almost all of the signs related to Iran's nuclear program and none relating to its actual human rights violations. I would have had a lot more admiration for the protesters if they focused more on Iran's primary crimes on women, youth, homosexuals, Baha'is and political dissenters instead of a predicted imaginary military attack against Israel that has not happened. Iranians will watch the protests and see that the main concern of the American people is not the oppression of Iranians, but Ahmadinejad's anti-Israel rhetoric.
The president of Columbia's criticisms of Ahmadinejad's crimes before his speech was very constructive. But Bollinger did the cause of free speech and America's image in the Middle East a great deal of disservice when he went on for almost 19 minutes name-calling Ahmadinejad before allowing him to speak and not really thanking him for accepting Columbia's invitation to speak. Ahmadinejad scored a second point when he criticized the Columbia president for giving the audience what he called a "vaccination" before Ahmadinejad had a chance to speak. He said that in Iran, they allow students and professors to freely exchange ideas without instructing them how they should feel about things. That, of course, cannot have been farther from the truth. Nonetheless, many in the room related to his argument, promoting the students to applaud, hence ridiculing those who introduced him. It is understandable why Columbia would be inclined to give such an introduction to defuse some of the pressure that was asserted on the university due to massive criticisms of the institution for allowing Ahmadinejad to speak. But he went too far, which gave Ahmadinejad the opportunity to successfully attack back and score some sympathy.
But the most tragic part of the event was the Q and A segment. The Iranian regime is as vulnerable with regards to its domestic policies as America is with regards to its foreign policy and war in Iraq. It is true that Iran has occasionally funded various groups that have been hostile to U.S. interests. But the United States has done the very same thing to Iran and much more. An example which Ahmadinejad pointed out to was Reagan's sales of weapons to Saddam, which he used against in Iran for eight years. I can still vividly remember the sound of sirens, duct taped living room windows and American-funded air strikes.
And yet, most of Bollinger's questions focused on Iran's foreign policies. By keeping the focus on international issues, Columbia gave him an easy way to turn the conversation around time and again and criticize American policy. One question was why Iran was enriching uranium, which Bollinger naively ended with "would you stop?" And why should they stop? There is no evidence that they are building a bomb, they are a member of the NPT, which gives them the right to enrich uranium, and their two main open enemies -- Israel and America -- both possess nuclear weapons, with the former not being a member of NPT and the latter breaking its rules by not moving toward the treaty's ultimate goal: elimination of all nuclear weapons.
Many Iranians hoped that Columbia would take this opportunity to keep the focus of questions on Iran's brutal domestic policies. And yet, of the five or six questions that were asked, astonishingly, only one related to human rights, with women and homosexuals put together in one question as if they didn't deserve their own individual questions. But for the most part, the questions that were asked of him were significantly superficial. This is not because questions with regards to anti-Israel and anti-American rhetoric aren't important. But rather, they are nothing new! Iran has been issuing such empty rhetoric since the Islamic revolution in 1979. Yet that's what they have been: empty rhetoric for domestic consumption, not an official policy declaration. But human rights crimes, stoning of women for infidelity, arresting unmarried people for dating or holding hands in public and killing homosexuals for being have been going on for almost three decades. As someone who was arrested in Tehran at age 16 for the crime of being on a date, I can attest to that fact. Here are some questions Bollinger should have asked: Will you allow women to have the right to initiate divorce from their husbands or obtain a passport without the consent of their husbands? Will you allow boys and girls to date or go to school together? Do you promise that the people in Iran can be safe in publicly criticizing you or the Supreme Leader Khomeini? Will you guarantee people's rights to wear whatsoever clothing they choose in public? Will you allow people to convert away from Islam to other religions? Would you support a free UN-administered referendum for your people to vote on whether they want an Islamic republic or a secular democratic republic? If yes, will you respect its outcome?
Without asking these significant questions or any meaningful understanding of more than 2,500 years of Iranian history, Columbia provided an environment for Ahmadinejad to criticize American policy, divert every viewer's attention from the country's brutalities and oppression and play to the audience's idealist beliefs that scored him more applauses than any meaningful challenge to his stance and record on issues that mattered the most.
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Bollinger sounded more like a Fox news pundit than a University president. He was asking questions he knew the speaker would not have time to answer and at the same time said "I doubt that you will have the intellectual courage to answer these questions." I find the president of Columbia university to be dis-honest and terribly un-informed.
Unlike you, I think the audience questioning were appropriate. Their questions had to concentrate on foreign policy. Ahamdinejad is visiting US for a UN speech,. The context of the trip is possible invasion of Iran. The pretext of invasion is nuclear rights of Iran vs international demands and claims that Iran is arming Iraqis. Furthermore, Various people have accused the Iranian president of being worst than Hitler. Unless the absurdity (or validity) of the accusation is established, there is really no point in asking question like: "Will you guarantee people's rights to wear whatsoever clothing they choose in public?".
We also know that US has reputation of supporting dictators. Iraq and Afghanistan war shows that human rights are not the first priority. It would be highly hypocritical to have American audience ask about due process when the same laws are being violated by US.
Human rights should not be used as a tool for regime change propaganda. The fact is that you wont advance case of human rights by asking questions from politicians. The only way human rights can be improved is by removing restriction on interaction of people (in this case Americans and Iranians). Bush administration has been doing the exact opposite. It was interesting, for instance, that Ahmadinejad is inviting Americans to go to Iran but Iranians have hard time visiting US. In a way Iran seems more confident about itself than US does about herself.
The only pretext that would justify military action against Iran is if it is proven BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT that Iran is an imminent threat to the security of the United States. The point of bringing up the human rights questions was not to make a case for war in Iran. The point would have been to demonstrate Americans' concern for the wellbeing of Iranian citizens, helping Americans' image in Iran and energizing the pro-western reformist movement that has suffered so much as Bush's rhetoric over the past seven years has cut the legs from under them.
I want to underline this idea. America has NO RIGHT to invade Iran unless Iran is proven to be an imminent threat to the security of the United States, and this judgment should be made by the United Nations, not the United States alone.
" Several things are wrong with this argument: Nobody "had to" anything, it's still a (somewhat) free country. And there are questions that strike a stronger chord than "Will you guarantee people's rights to wear what they choose in public?" Arguments that rely on sophistry serve reasoned discourse poorly, when they serve at all.
http://www.thoughttheater.com/2007/09/mahmoud_dearest_scrubbing_the_gay_out_of_iran.php
2. This does NOt excuse current mullahs from being against EVERYTHING Western civilization stands for and oppressing and terrorising their own population.
3. And we in the West ( Europe, N. AMerica) will assess any danger Iran poses to us. This is the prerogative of the strong over the overreaching weak. C'est la guerre..
If we decide we can live with nuclear Iran, so be it. If not, let the them beware.
I think the mullahs know which way the wind blows n the West, thats why they're attempting a PR campaign. Too bad they chose a blow-hard ex-terrorist to represent them.
"3. And we in the West ( Europe, N. AMerica) will assess any danger Iran poses to us."
Let's hope our "assessment" of Iran's danger to the US is better than the one we had before our preemptive invasion of Iraq.
We inject others with these values like some sort of inoculation which turns out to be a viral contagion that ends up killing the patient.
Our democratic missionary work is a huge charade aimed at setting the rules of the game for all the other players while we get to operate above them.
It simply renders other systems inert while we scoop their resources.
Wake up people.
Mr Ahmandinejad's opinions are only opinions that we may not agree with but you could say that about most leaders of the world. He is not a threat to anyone but possibly his own people.
The US should be more worried about our own problems that will be affecting most of much more than a possible terrost attack- a recession is looming, our trade deficits are increasing, the middle class is disappearing,China and Russia and Europe are become the economic leaders, etc.
Leave Iran alone and start paying attention to what our leaders are not doing right in our country.
ha ha gurgle....
I generally credit your analysis, but I think you missed something. MA's rhetoric while playing to the Iranian public and those sympathetic in the Muslim world was quite like the more hidden support the Saudi kingdom gives to the Wahabbists in their own country. It psychologically enables hate and violence against anyone not in power in those countries.
The Administration in this country does something similar but generally uses proxies to do it; agianst "moonbat lefties," "envirowackos," abortion doctors, homosexuals, "illegal aliens," victims of corporate greed, and any kind of non-white or non-christian-church-going group, and the lawyers who dare to support them. MA could be seen as the proxy mouthpiece for hate for the religious powers of Iran.
Looked at in this way, his savvy is perhaps even more disturbing than you suggest. I would not blame the University or the US citizenry for their foolishness, rather lay the blame on the religious leaders in Iran. Clearly MA has gone far in deflecting that. Clearly the US is complicit in the blame because it was only through religiously supported revolution that Iran could cast off the Shah.
Your analysis and insight is welcome and I just wanted to share my perspective. Thanks.
joeb.
It's suprising how many ordinary Americans are pro-Israel. Unlike the far left, they do not forget the terrorism of Araft & the PLO or the bombing of our embassies.
An Iranian beautiful lesbian getting close enough to his inner circle, to spray a whiff of Chernobal #9 in this queer=killer's face.
a very interesting comment...one I agree with very much! nice insight.