Will the Focus at the UN Be on Ahmadinejad's Human Rights Abuses?

When Mahmoud Ahmadinejad comes to the UN this week, his biggest fear will be that the visit will be marred by international condemnations over election fraud and the massive human rights abuses taking place in Iran under his watch. If he has his way, however, the international media may forget about the killings in Iran and focus on his provocative Holocaust comments instead.

Mindful of the horrific human rights abuses that have taken place in Iran in the aftermath of the stolen elections, and the continuing protests and resistance by ordinary Iranians, one would think that Ahmadinejad's lack of internal legitimacy would be the natural topic of conversation. But Ahmadinejad is not a man of limited resources.

He knows how to deflect the attention of the media and he is a master of changing the subject. And he knows all too well how to push the buttons of Western audiences.

So it is not a surprise that after having been relatively quiet about the Holocaust for almost two years, Ahmadinejad suddenly decided to question it once again just a few days before landing in New York. At the Friday prayer sermons on September 18, Ahmadinejad called the Holocaust a "lie."

His calculation seems to be as follows: Just as before, Western journalists will focus on the controversy around his Holocaust denial, while neglecting about the abuses and violations that are taking place in Iran on a continuous basis. The controversial Holocaust comments will overshadow everything else and will be the focus of not only Western media, but also the protests in New York as well as the statements and comments by European officials. At a minimum, it may help Ahmadinejad portray the situation as such to his audience in Iran.

Ahmadinejad can handle the scorn of world leaders and the Western media with his questioning of the Holocaust, partly because his own constituency of hardliners in Iran sees eye to eye with him on this issue. And partly because ordinary Iranians may be displeased and embarrassed by his comments, but in the midst of the repression they face in Iran, are preoccupied with more immediate concerns. Indeed, when European diplomats walked out on Ahmadinejad in Geneva during the racism summit earlier this year, many ordinary Iranians felt insulted by the act even if they rejected Ahmadinejad's comments.

What Ahmadinejad cannot handle, however, is extensive and relentless focus on Iran's human rights record. Criticism against Ahmadinejad on these grounds by world leaders could do irreparable damage to Ahmadinejad's standing inside Iran, particularly as Iranians of all walks of life continue to defy his rule. It would show that the world is not indifferent to the systematic and lethal abuses taking place in Iranian prisons. It would show that the world cares, not only about Ahmadinejad's provocative rhetoric, but actually also about the well being of the Iranian people.

Ahmadinejad cannot handle a walkout at the UN over his election robbery and human rights abuses.

So if delegates at the UN General Assembly walk out on Ahmadinejad on Wednesday, the decisive issue will be on what grounds they did so. Will it be over his Holocaust denial or over his stealing of an election and torture of his own people?

Ahmadinejad's preference is clear. He has used the tragedy of the Holocaust for political gain before. The question is if the world will walk into his trap again.

 

 

Follow Trita Parsi on Twitter: www.twitter.com/tparsi

Comments

[skeptic 0]

Now that the WPO Poll shows Ahmadinejad must have won the election with a wide margin, isn’t time to publicize its importance as laud as it deserves?

If the “derived” cross correlation of the Polls of the Terror Free Tomorrow (May 2009) and WPO (September 2009) are as high as 60-80%, then one might conclude the following:

Western and Foreign powers (once again?), in a well preplanned and well coordinated plot assisted the great mass protest (exploiting the broad intense dissatisfactions of the educated people ). By using the Internet, their hired media, and other possible means they consistently spread FALSE claims about the “widespread fraud” and “rigged” election..

Juan Cole and many others believed all that.

Study these PDFs:

http://www.terrorfreetomorrow.org/upimagestft/TFT%20Iran%20Survey%20Report%200609.pdf
http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/pdf/sep09/IranUS_Sep09_rpt.pdf
http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/pdf/sep09/IranUS_Sep09_quaire.pdf

These revelations come at the time when suspicions are growing over Neda’s death, its connections with the Brazilian man, with what happened in Venezuela, the question why the doctor who is in the video fled the country and so on

Trita, you are intelligent, believable and. Don’t you think your priority must be first fighting the hideous warmongers and talk about the “important” human right cases only after the suffocating dusts of another “possible” genocide are settled?

[wereeverywhere]

"Juan Cole and many others believed all that."

Juan Cole called the stolen election immediately, skewered that woeful WaPo poll to shreds, and continually exposes the IRI regime as lethal charlatans and is solidarity with the Iranians struggling for freedom. Long live a free Iran.

[skeptic 0]

Cole? That was a sarcastic thought in my mind(!!) also i wanted to type Coles, i missed the ss.

[laikhuram]

it must be on W Bush' human rights violations.....

[fbr79]

Of course no, people will be too distracted by Gadaffi's tent @ Trump's property to worry about other little things, like human rights.

[Hammersmithman]

Antarinejad's outrageous comments on the Holocaust and the comments of his apologists here in the west (as pathetic as they are) should be ignored at the UN (for now). Instead, his blatant disregard for human rights of the Iranian people should be brought to the forefront of this years' agenda. He has no legitimacy as a head of state.

[x76]

Excuse me, but do you know anything about life in Iran other that what the Zionist media has spoon-fed you?

[MetalMelissa]

While I agree with you, this is exactly the kind of thing that gets us into trouble.
Maybe we should stop worrying about other nations right now. What happens in Iran, is Iran's business unless there is a legitimate threat to our nation. And, I mean legitimate. Not this "maybe, so let's jump the gun" attitude. We have a lot of our own problems to fix here and we're stretched too thin already. Talking to him won't do any good. The guy is obviously beyond reasonable conversation. The violation of human rights in Iran is beyond disgusting, but he has found a stupid way to justify it or excuse it. No one here is buying it but what can we really do as a nation to shut him up?

[jakartaman]

I don't agree with Parsi's argument about Ahmadinejad fear of human rights condemnation. In fact, if the media only focus on that particular issue, the Iranian President would just walk in the park. For who is in her/his right mind to question Iran's record on human rights when most so called democracies are also marred with the same problem?. Take a look at Guantanamo, the Gaza destruction, the Iraq's occupation and the Afghan attrocities. Nobody in his/her right mind would use human right issues in Iran to discredit Ahmadinejad in New York, because in so doing it would only give the President an opening to even more ferocious in criticizing the West.

Of all people, Trita Parsi should know better that in international politics, the charge of abusing human rights is a slippery path to take if you don't have strong international support. Iranian election, for its better and worse, has been accepted by the international community as avalid democratic process. while the internal political crises that occurred in its aftermath has been resolved through legal processes. Like it or not, no country (especially in the middle east) could claim of having a superior human rights record compared to Iran. So bringing human rights issues to discredit Ahmadinejad is not only counterproductive, but also laughable.

[RedDogBear]

You do raise a good point. In comparison to Saudi Arabia -- who have never had an election and where the oligarchical control of the country by the house of Saud is as obvious as the name of the country (it would be as if Bush had renamed the US to the United States of Bush) and to Egypt which had elections several years back that were rejected by force because they didn't come out the way the rulers wanted, in comparison to those and most middle east countries Iran is about the same or perhaps even a bit better. I agree that there is great hypocrisy in the US media who go into incredible detail covering the abuses in Iran but ignore Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and other countries.

However, where I disagree is in somehow thinking all that makes what Ahmadinejad's thugs did OK and not worthy of protest. I would rather see the UN protesting all human rights violations equally. However the answer to that is not to stop criticizing Ahmadinejad's violations but to push more forcefully to cover everyone else as well and support groups like Amnesty International that do so.

[wereeverywhere]

You raise some interesting points, particularly Egypt and Saudi Arabia both having awful human rights records. The two-dimensional anti-imperialists who champion Ahma lack imagination as well as scruples. If the miserable structure of IRI fell to a democracy movement, its shockwaves would weaken the Egyptian and Saudi states and remove an incredibly useful bogeyman for US warmongers.

[wereeverywhere]

The Iranian elections on a good day were /never/ accepted as anything coming close to a democratic process. The June elections were even worse than the abysmal normal level with the outright fraud and violence. Fortunately there's a backlash that threatens the government itself.

[den1953]

The leader of Iran deflects the WW 2 holocaust thing to throw off the press and gives him cover from the real questions about his country, just thinking what if the nuclear overtones are a hoax like Sadam playing the fear card. I really think this country is trouble in the future there playing a dangerous game to the world and reaction in the wrong way could very well mean WW 3!

[MetalMelissa]

It really is a complete waste of time to argue with someone who doesn't believe the Holocaust happened. How are you supposed to get through to a person like that? Dining room table.

[x76]

I'm certain that you would support an international, transparent forensic investigation of the Nazi "death camps" in order to fully and openly catalog each and every prisoner and death. No one interested in the facts of the matter would find fault with this idea. Let's ascertain as precisely as possible given modern computing and forensic technology how many people were incarcerated and how many died, and by what means.

To make this more interesting, for every 5% historical overestimation of any death count, Israel would lose 5% of its 1948 territory. Given that estimates of the entire European Jewish pre-WWII population are about 5.5 million, this could be entertaining.

[MetalMelissa]

Sure would. Go for it, champ.

Maybe we'll find out that Hitler was just throwing tea parties for everyone.
I'm sure that was the case.

[RandVictims]

I guess.the Afghan elections were "Free and Fair", eh?

[MetalMelissa]

I'm sure he'll say so.

[RandVictims]

Western corporations make Ahmadinejad look like Gandhi.

[fbr79]

I'm sure Iranian female political prisoners being raped and beaten right now disagree with you.

[x76]

Ahmadinejad is a guest in our country and it would be in poor taste to be hostile or insulting to a guest. I realize that Israel is literally foaming at the mouth trying to create our third world war, but, like an insane aunt, our too-deep Israeli ties need to be shunted off to a back room for the duration of Ahmadinejad's visit.

Our Pavlovian response to anything Iranian needs to be curbed. We are embarrassing our country with our over-the-top behavior towards Iran and its President.

And as far as human rights go, that's a pretty funny topic to bring up given that the US has invaded two countries and is continuing to operate a network of secret prisons around the globe.

[FHTB]

Indeed, when European diplomats walked out on Ahmadinejad in Geneva during the racism summit earlier this year, many ordinary Iranians felt insulted by the act even if they rejected Ahmadinejad's comments.

This isn't about the insults that Iranians feel and the internal squabbling that is taking place in their country as a result of Ahmadinnerjacket's illegitimate government...his provocative comments about the Holocaust signify that no matter how Iran wishes to portray itself, as long as Ahmadinnerjacket and the crazies are in charge and hold these vile, contemptible views, they will never be considered anything except a pariah nation...if Iranians feel insulted by that, well, that's too bad...

[Foxrun]

Do you realize you are speaking from both sides of your mouth? In one instance you are attempting to show sympathy with the Iranian people by calling the current gov. illegitimate; and in another instance you are saying if the Iranian people feel insulted well that's just too bad??

By the way on what basis are you calling the Iranian government illegitimate - there is no concrete proof of this at all.

[Chazmania]

Why should they? they ignored the USA's

[WeMustSpeakOut]

My thought exactly.

[RedDogBear]

So you tell the Iranian people who are fighting for democracy "too bad for you" in order to "get even" for Guantanamo? It seems to me the real answer is to push the UN, Obama, and other countries to aggresively pursue US human rights and war crimes but not to just abandon Iranians fighting for freedom.

[Wozzeck]

Why is corporate media focused on Iran, especially the alleged election fraud? There are plenty of countries which have had even more questionable elections - or no elections at all. Why are all these countries given free passes by the media? Two reason come to mind.
1. The US public will more readily accept an attack on Iran if Iran is exclusively shown in a negative light
2. Israel's treatment of the Palestinians can be conveniently forgotten about while corporate media pretend to be defending human rights in Iran.

[FHTB]

ALLEGED fraud?
Surely you jest...

Iran's radical elements have managed to silence opposition and install a man who is more interested in provocation than helping his country emerge from the dark ages of theocratic rule and tyranny. Iran will forever remain an outlaw nation as long as its leaders treat America and Israel as enemies and seek the destruction of Israel...there can be no admittance into the world club as long as religious zanies run Iran...the people of the country understand this, and are tired of being relegated to being a pariah nation because of the crazy, militant, insane rantings of Ahmadinnerjacket and his fellow religious loons...

[Foxrun]

Oh please.. Iran trying to destroy the U.S. and Israel - get real!! It's the otherway around.

[wereeverywhere]

Shills for IRI quake in your boots because the mass movement struggling for freedom exposes the anti-human, repressive roots of the Theocracy. As you toss out ridiculous questions about the Media Conspiracy that dares to cover the Iranian crisis, you ignore the Iranians themselves who fight their jail wardens. How many other countries have a sustained mass protest in the face of such reaction?

[dobberdoss]

"Will the Focus at the UN Be on Ahmadinejad's Human Rights Abuses?"

Let's start with Americas first!

[ZenJu]

Mr. Parsi, I wish for Iran to enjoy true freedom someday, the genuine democracy that so many hoped for when the Shah's reign was ended and was thwarted by the mullahs. Sadly, Ahmadinejad has many supporters and fans among certain of the ultra-left, which is puzzling yet nonetheless true, judging from many of the comments posted at HuffPo. I'm an Israeli, and I look forward to the day when our peoples will embrace each other in friendship and cooperation to make life better for all of us in this region. Salaam, shalom!

[janeycat]

i pray for that day too