Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad looks on during his first news conference after the presidential elections in Tehran, June 14, 2009. Ahmadinejad is set to address the U.N. on Sept. 23. (Damir Sagolj/Reuters)

Opinion: Iran's leader plays the pan-Muslim populist

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How Ahmadinejad plays better on the Arab street than in Persian society

By Mohamad Bazzi - GlobalPost

Published: September 22, 2009 15:51 ET
Updated: September 30, 2009 08:14 ET

NEW YORK — When Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addresses the United Nations on Wednesday, he will speak past the world leaders gathered in the cavernous hall of the General Assembly. His message will be crafted to improve his standing in the Muslim world and bolster his reputation as a Third World hero.

In a region ruled by kings and despots, Ahmadinejad has worked hard to cultivate his image as a pan-Islamic populist leader who is not afraid to stand up to the West. He quickly became more popular with Arabs than among his own people, who were frustrated by his inability to improve a stagnant economy, root out corruption, and redistribute oil wealth. When Ahmadinejad denies the Holocaust or threatens Israel, his rhetoric resonates more with Arabs than Iranians, who are Persian and have far less at stake in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Ahmadinejad revels in being an international provocateur. Before the rigged presidential election and popular uprising in Iran, the controversy generated by his remarks would appease conservatives inside Iran and win over the wider Muslim world. But today Ahmadinejad is just another despot in the Middle East — and he needs to use his United Nations platform to win back some credibility. He won’t be able to erase the stain of a stolen election and his power grab. But he can rail against Israel and Western domination, emphasize the plight of the Palestinians, and claim to speak for the downtrodden everywhere.

In September 2007, when Ahmadinejad spoke at Columbia University during a visit to the United Nations, I argued that the best response was for the West to ignore him because he was not the true source of power in the Iranian regime. Under Iran’s theocratic system, the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has final say in all political and national security matters. But Ahmadinejad’s role has changed: he has seized far more authority than he had a few years ago and he is working tirelessly to eliminate his political opponents. It’s much harder to ignore his antics and poisonous rhetoric. Ahmadinejad’s struggle to burnish his credibility mirrors the entire Iranian regime’s quest for renewed legitimacy. After the June election, many in the West predicted that the Iranian ruling clique, if it survived, would be weakened by internal problems and would have to abandon its regional ambitions.

True, the clerical hierarchy and military apparatus in Tehran do need to shore up their Islamic and populist credentials. But contrary to the conventional wisdom, their best chance at doing that is to focus outward: an imperial Iran trying to extend its dominance over the Persian Gulf and the region as a whole. As it seeks to maintain its grip on power, the Iranian regime will be tempted to engage in more, not less, adventurism abroad.

Comments:

2 Comments.

Posted by Sam Bolivar on September 29, 2009 12:41 ET

Dear Mr. Bazzi:

First of all, your article WAS interesting, although sadly clearly pro-Zionist in its bias. SO many accusations made, it's hard to know where to begin...

You analyze President Ahmadinejad's motivations for his actions, which is certainly fine. But how about doing the same for, for instance, the Zionist warmonger Binyamin Netanyahu? After all, it's Netanyahu (just like Olmert and Sharon and their ilk) who is constantly making illegal threats against the sovereign nation of Iran. Or is 'Bibi' a 'Teflon' leader, who can't be criticized? ;-)

You make some pretty strong accusations in your article - I presume you're prepared to back them up? You wrote,

"... Ahmadinejad denies the Holocaust or threatens Israel... "

I'm curious - In contrast with Israel's leaders, which threaten his nation EVERY WEEK, when has Ahmadinejad threatened to attack Israel? Please post some links, like I will. Actually, what I've read is that the Western media has repeatedly misrepresented Pres. Ahmadinejad's statements - e.g., claiming that he said Iran would 'wipe Israel off the map'. The articles below state that this pro-Zionist claim is disinformation:

www.mohammadmossadegh.com/news/rumor-of-the-century/
"Wiped off the Map" - the Rumor of the Century
by Arash Norouzi

www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12790.htm
Does Iran's President Want Israel Wiped Off The Map - Does He Deny The Holocaust?

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article13641.htm
Lost in translation - Experts confirm that Iran's president did not call for Israel to be 'wiped off the map'.
By Jonathan Steele

Also, Iran has not aggressively attacked another nation in some 200 years - contrast that to bloodthirsty Israel and the U.S., two rogue states in the TRUE 'Axis of Evil' (Washington - London - Tel Aviv)!

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Oh, and remember the Pentagon's claims that Iran was supplying the freedom fighters (er, TERRORISTS) fighting the US invaders in Iraq? Oops! Just a minor mistake there:

www.campaigniran.org/CASMII/index.php?q=node/4886
US confession: Weapons were not made in Iran after all
(source: CASMII)
May 10, 2008

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Also, you mention, "... the rigged presidential election and popular uprising in Iran, ..."
---> Oh, and like the U.S. presidential elections of 2000 and 2004 weren't stolen? LOL! Man, you seem to have a short memory span! If you 'forget' 2004, then your powers of recall almost certainly don't go back as far as the CIA overthrow in 1953 of Iran's democratically elected government. Or worse, they do - but you have conveniently chosen to not mention this. Also, you 'forget' to mention that the CIA was reportedly interfering in the last Iranian election - allegedly spending some 400 million USD in a flagrantly illegal effort to create upheaval, or even a coup (again!) in Iran. Nothing like some good 'ole interference by the "bastion of democracy" AKA the United Fascist States of Aggression, huh. (I wonder how America would like it if the tables were turned?).

www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2009/06/23/has-the-u-s-played-a-role-in-fom...
http://pakalert.wordpress.com/2009/06/18/cia-has-distributed-400-million...
CIA has Distributed 400 Million Dollars Inside Iran to Evoke a Revolution
2009 June 18
http://christopherhitchenswatch.blogspot.com/2009/06/cia-iran-and-electi...

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Oh, and (like many other people who don't credibly believe U.S./Israeli governmental propaganda) I definitely do deny the exaggerated figure of 6 million Jewish deaths in "The Holocaust". IMO, any informed, intellectually-honest person not beholden to Zionist interests will at least have doubts about that number:

www.zundelsite.org/english/harwood/Didsix01.html
Did Six Million Really Die?

"... Thus, even if one accepts the latter estimate, the number of possible wartime Jewish deaths could not have exceeded a limit of one and a half million. Precisely this conclusion was reached by the reputable journal Baseler Nachrichten of neutral Switzerland. In an article entitled “Wie hoch ist die Zahl der jüdischen Opfer?” (“How high is the number of Jewish victims?”, June 13th, 1946), it explained that purely on the basis of the population and emigration figures described above, a maximum of only one and a half million Jews could be numbered as casualties. ..."

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http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/holofour.php?q=holofour.php
THE HOLOCAUST AND THE FOUR MILLION VARIANT
Memorial Day, 2007
D. Cassidy
(WRH.com's editor is Jewish)

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http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/holocaustfundamentalist.php?q=...
Holocaust Fundamentalism: You WILL Believe
by Mark Green

"... But aside from that, since when is skepticism a crime? Where are the bodies, for instance? Even the Yard Vashem Holocaust Museum in Israel, after 60 years, can only muster three million names, and many of those names are of Jews who merely died (or disappeared) during WWII, causes unknown. Many names appear more than once. In a similar vein, while the number of Jews murdered at Auschwitz was officially reduced by millions in recent years, the irreducible number of "six million Jews" remains. Isn't it possible that there's some politically-motivated chicanery here?
It is, after all, indisputable that some earlier "facts" regarding the Holocaust have been streamlined and smoothed out for popular consumption. ... The Jewish obsession with everything Jewish is shamefully narcissistic and burdensome. Their defiant ethnocentrism is an ongoing insult to the rest of the human race. ..."

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www.ihr.org/books/hoggan/A3.html
The Myth of the Six Million -- Appendix 3
That Elusive 'Six Million'
BY AUSTIN J. APP, PH.D.

"... Admittedly the execution for no crime of any one human being, or a thousand, or a million, or six million is a horrible crime. But wanton exaggeration of atrocities for political and blackmailing purposes is a wrong, too, and honesty and accuracy are virtues. ..."

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www.thebirdman.org/Index/Jews/Jews-History&ScripturalOriginOfThe6Million...
History & Scriptural Origin of the Six Million Number
By John "Birdman" Bryant

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http://cgi.stanford.edu/group/wais/cgi-bin/?p=2730
Auschwitz Museum Director Reveals ‘Gas Chamber’ Hoax
By P. Samuel Foner The Spotlight Volume XIX, Number 25-31-4
"... In a dramatic and unprecedented videotaped interview, Dr. Franciszek Piper, senior curator and director of archives of the Auschwitz State Museum admitted on camera that ‘Krema 1,’ the alleged ‘homicidal gas chamber’ shown off to hundreds of thousands of tourists every year at the Auschwitz main camp, was, in fact, fabricated after the war by the Soviet Union -apparently on the direct orders of Josef Stalin. What Piper said - in effect and on camera - was that the explosive 1988 Leuchter Report was correct: no homicidal gassings took place in the buildings designated as ‘homicidal gas chambers’ at Auschwitz. With this admission by none other than the respected head of the Auschwitz State Museum, one of the most sacred ‘facts’ of history has been destroyed. This ‘gas chamber’ is the major historical ‘fact’ on which much of the foreign and domestic policies of all Western nations since WWII are based. ..."

www.livevideo.com/video/NewMindZ/D9137CE18BDA41EE90DB496765D6AEB3/holoca...
Holocaust: David Cole (Jew) Interviews Dr. Franciszek Piper (1992)
Part 1/2

www.livevideo.com/video/NewMindZ/19B2A5A178F44863901A9BF5556CD7E6/holoca...
Part 2/2

www.codoh.com/gcgv/gcgvcole.html
(This includes much of the video's dialogue)

www.vho.org/GB/c/DC/gcgvcole.html
Presentation Takes Aim at Key Holocaust Claims
(Auschwitz Museum Official Admits "Gas Chamber" is Postwar Reconstruction)
GREG RAVEN

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www.jewsagainstzionism.com/antisemitism/holocaust/index.cfm
The Brutal Zionist Role in the Holocaust
The price of Zionism

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Feel free to write me. Let's strive to spread truth, OK? It's precious...

Sam Bolivar
StrivingForJustice@yahoo.com

Posted by ignaham on September 29, 2009 16:56 ET

I was reading the article albeit a few days late and noticed the same issue that it is written with the Zionist twist. I am not an Ahmadinejad supporter or condone his posturing towards his own people but the article would have a bit more credibility if the author was more impartial and reported the news rather than beat the drums for US and Israel where these two countries continue to talk from both sides of their mouths. Is it any surprise that Qaddafi mocks the UN? Anyone with a 6 grade education and ability to read can figure out the hypocrisy.