Exclusive TIME interview with Ahmadinejad

Thanks for the heads-up, Amy. Obviously Ahmadinejad never studied Dale Carnegie. When Joe posts about this there will be many rants. I won't play “kick the messenger” here.

Professional journalist and editor Rick Stengel:

Q: Good morning Mr. President [Ahmadinejad]. Even as we speak right now, President Obama in Pittsburgh will be giving a speech accusing Iran of building a secret nuclear plant previously undisclosed.
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A) Why did you not not reveal the existence of this facility before, and
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2) will you allow immediate international inspectors to go to the facility?

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A:Mr. Obama is about to say these?
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Q: This morning at 8:30.
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A: What, did Mr. Obama tell you this when he stepped out of the shower? Are you Mr. Obama's towel-boy, or something?
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I tell you, it is a good thing that we do not have homosexuals in Iran, and that also it is illegal and punishable by death. I therefore do not have a towel-boy such as you with whom to gossip in the early morning.
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I am surprised that Mr. Obama would send his towel-boy to confront me about such a serious matter as international nuclear inspections prior to saying a word about it in public.
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Is that how your country works, Mr. Towel-boy?
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Does your president send his minor servants out to speak to heads of state, because he is afraid to confront them himself?
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Why am I talking to you about what the President hasn't said yet?
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Are you going to fight for your President if I disagree with what you are telling me he hasn't said yet?
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No wonder your nation is full of degenerates and homosexuals...Next question?

Then that tool Rick Stengel puts this headline over the video:
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Exclusive: Ahmadinejad Surprised by Obama Nuke Slapdown, Says Back Off!
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OOOOOOOOOOOOOH! FIGHT! FIGHT!
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It's truly unbelievable that the press corps continues to operate in such a colossally stupid and irresponsible manner.
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Great job making your President and your country look like such cowards and incompetents in front of the international community, Rick Stengel.
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Great job again, Time Magazine.

Looks like non-news to me. Ahmadinejad dodges question, implies denial.

I'm sure Time wants to spotlight its sit-down with this say-anything kook, but as far as I can tell, "There's no there there."

When will Stengel be confronting Netanyahu to ask if Israel has any nuclear weapons or not?

"The absence of Germany, Russia and China from Friday's announcement was all the more disappointing given the fact that the U.S. has spent more than a year in careful deliberations aimed at securing a consensus among all six countries whose representatives will meet with Iranian negotiators in Geneva next week." < from the Time Article.
________

The U.S. strategy, devised and implemented by Obama's top Iran advisor, Dennis Ross FAILED!
What a mess.

The problems in the Middle East always appear intractable largely because of things like this. No consensus on issues/insufficient backing and support from our so called "Allies".

Now Ahmadinejad will continue with his Holocaust denials and explosive Anti-American/Anti Jewish Rhetoric.

Sad!

LM

http://theblindspotsofgod.wordpress.com/

" .. unapologetic Mahmoud Ahmadinejad .."

The underlying premise which you casually want us to embrace here is that he has something to be apologetic about.

What is it?

It should be noted that Iran has no treaty obligation at this point to have notified the IAEA about the new facility -- Iran notified the IAEA that it intended to abide by the original treaty whose provisions require notification of a new facility six months before nuclear material is introduced to that facility.

You have countries armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons constantly threatening a country, that doesn't have nuclear weapons, and then you wonder why they might be seeking to get them.

Here's a query--who's a greater threat to Americans? Rick "toxic-journalistic-malpractice-corpo-whore" Stengel or some Palinesque wackjob in Iran. Pause, consider. Or just wait for Joe's considerable gravitas.

Suspect election in Iran? Solution;
have results verified by old pal Jimmy Carter... ;^)
-- found a cool site; Balkingpoints ; incredible satellite view of earth

Dear Swamplanders

Bear with me as some of my views are very unconventional and undiplomatic at times, reality requires no less.

We live in a very perilous time. I hope for the sake of the humanity that we do not have to witness another horrific war and unnecessary lost of human lives with abominable human suffering.

Media propaganda:

Despite the usual west's media propaganda and hypocrisy;
Iran has a valid point here. Because their very existential survival depends on having a nuclear determent in a rough neighborhood.

Geostragically, it make sense to have nuclear deterrence.
Of course, it will effectively neutralize Israel's own nuclear deterrence, (actually that's the point, in their view). and may be a dangerous precedent in a combustible region. Therefore balance of power in the Middle East's structure might change permanently in favor of Israel's nemeses.

The root cause:

If Israel ends its occupation in Arab's territories, they wouldn't have to fear Iranian's bomb or any bombs for that matter. Basically, Israel's claims that Arabs/Persians will never accept the existence of Jewish state in ME, has no basis of truth. if anything, the hatred seem to emanate from their inhumane treatment towards palestinian civilians, along their nearly apartheid propensity in the occupied land .
Most Arabs and even radical ones, included Hamas, have by now accepted and considers the Jewish state as a fait accompli.

Iranians are not mad people as the media tries to portray them to be. They wouldn't use the bomb against Israel, (which is believed to have more sophisticated nuclear warheads itself). Obviously, such a foolish action would not only be Iran's death knell but also it could be reduced into stone age, with a dreadful detriment to the environment, not to mention, a long term radio active fallout in region.

Israel's pretenses:

Israel may claim they won't be the first one to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear state, (for this, I admire their benignancy) but the real question is not about using them firstly but possess them in the first place and to have the audacity to deny others from possessing it.

The fact that three of Iran's neighbors have nuclear weapons, two of whom have successfully tested; makes Iranian's view more urgent to have one for only security reasons.
The day all of nations abandons their nuclear weapons altogether; And not Gordon Brown's disarmament version,
(He claimed recently that Trident submarine fleet might be "hypothetically" reduced from four to three submarines; although many people in the UK contests as the real reason being domestic political and budgetary struggles rather than pacific doctrine) then you can honestly ask Iran to do likewise, otherwise, I think it's morally unjustifiable to expect Iran to abandon its nuclear's ambitions, either for peaceful purposes or defensive nature.

It has always seemed a great irony to me that the only nation to have ever used nuclear weapons against a civilian population is at the forefront of insuring that their enemies remain at that disadvantage.

As for Obama's call for World free of Nukes, has only value as his complete omission to call Israelis to cooperate the IAEA as he called on Iran and North Korea to abandons theirs in that very press conference.

Inequality world:

We live in an inequality world. Not only from economic perspective but also defensive as well. Allow me to share with you an interesting argument made by a BBC diplomatic correspondent not long ago over this very topic.

"The West must surely admit that at the heart of the contention lies an uncomfortable inequality. This is the rapidly outdated imbalance between the "haves" and the "have-nots" in the nuclear weapons club.
Why is it that the five signatories to the Non Proliferation Treaty who already have nuclear weapons - the US, Russia, China, Britain and France - are allowed to keep them, but any other countries that sign up to the treaty must renounce the prospect? Good for world peace, but not exactly fair. Especially when the NPT stipulates that these five are obliged to work towards reducing their stockpiles eventually to zero. That has not been the message of the past few years. the fact that those non NPT nations that have tested nuclear weapons (India, Pakistan and North Korea), far from being punished, have found themselves rewarded and their negotiating position immediately strengthened.
Then there is Israel, long suspected of holding nuclear weapons, under little or no pressure from Western allies to declare its hand or disarm.

From Tehran's point of view, it is easy to claim a double standard. Given all that, how do you persuade a country like Iran, eager to be seen as the dominant power in the region, not to succumb to the temptation of acquiring nukes, or at least reach the tipping point where it can use them as a bargaining chip?. Nuclear weapons are not just about capabilities, they are about prestige - a seat at the top table. Who are the five veto-wielding members of the UN Security Council? The five original nuclear powers. UN Security Council reform might also help send a message that global clout does not just rest with those who have armed themselves with atomic warheads".

Israel's phantom power:

Despite Israel's tough rhetorics on Iran, Israel cannot take on Iran militarily alone. There is nothing pacific about their passiveness. Had Israel had the means to take out Iranian's nuke facilities, I wouldn't think they needed the bother asking Uncle Sam's permission.

The absent of Israeli pre-emptive strike does not lay the lack of time nor international's concession but rather the consequence of such a strike and ultimately whether or not such a strike would make the inevitability of Iranian's bomb merely delay or make them less determined to create few of them in secrecy afterwards, given the fact they seem to have mastered the know-how technology already.

kade

Sincerely yours

Kade there is a simple rule you need to understand. Those who have nuclear weapons feel they have a moral right to insure that those who don't, never compete with them. They are the owners of the casino, who like to insure the odds are always on their side. The moral part is the lie they wrap themselves in, to disguise their moral degradation. Please note that not all of them are moral cripples. However, the ones who mean you no harm, tend to be in the minority, and lack the power to stop the beasts.

Our POTUS, the unabashed Christianist, swaggers around pontificating at all and sundry while sowing destruction on civilizations and unleashing video-game death on poor cave-dwellers of Somalia and Afghanistan (and more to come) - AS IF he has the right stuff, whatever that is.

Behold! "whatever it is" dissipates fast when confronted by the stridently belligerent beggars of the blood-soaked, barren wasteland named Israel: Then he would revert into a chicken-hearted, yellow-bellied, lily-livered, jello-footed mass of spineless goo ...

Now you see it, now you don't.

Fleeting: "Whatever it is" cannot be moral nor ethical nor Christian, can it?

[BHO seems to squander the world's goodwill faster that a poor man squanders the wealth from a lottery win.]

Dear Derek

I appreciate your respond. I precisely understood the simple rule you pointed out there.
Maybe I was referring to the same thing by "hypocrisy" part.

Still, I don't to understand the notion that some people seems to bought that an Iranian's bomb is by far, more deadly and destructive than Israeli's or American's, despite the fact, America remains the only country who actually used atomic bomb against Non-nuclear state, namely Japan.

To me, the whole nuke-issue, I envisage it Uncle Sam as a tenant who's a chainsmoker but hates his housemate to smoke in the house because "supposedly" it is *bad* for housemate's health.
Now whether that make sense, you tell me.

If a state's credibility meant anything in the realpolitik, I'd rather trust a state that doesn't have nuke bombs than the ones that not only have but used it before.
Or the ones that (Israel) hoards them and use it as means to intimidate its neighbors.

Also, the notion that makes Israel appear less aggressor and intimidating than they are reputated in the region (Mind you, intimidation it is part of Israel's strategic warfare, Israel would rather be feared than respected in ME, which explains why they always seem to prefer the use of disproportionally force against less equipped, ill-trained PA militias )

kade

Sincerely yours

kade besides worrying about not being able to intimidate you, if you get nukes, there is an assumption that you would be crazy enough to use it, or at the very least, give it to terrorists. Either way it would be a death sentence for your entire nation, if you followed either course. I don't personally think you have a death wish. However, if you don't mind me saying so, your current leader doesn't inspire confidence. You don't have to be a genius to know there was a holocaust. The evidence is overwhelming. The fact that he denies it, makes him seem as crazy as the religious whack jobs over here. Iran has a great history, one that includes reason and logic. It would be better for the world, and Iran, if your leaders rediscovered some of that reason, in spite of Israel.

Dear Derek

Let me clarify little misunderstanding and assumption out of the way.
I'm not an Arab or Persian but a fellow Muslim from Eatern Africa living in Western Europe.

You brough up very an interesting issue. Holocaust is a painful scar on human's conscience wherever they are and a historical fact. A horrific one indeed.
I do have pity for those who tries belittle or deny it for they have no souls.
I am a liberal minded person and I question everything in life. within that framework, I believe Ahmadinejad's questioning existence of Hollacaus in a historical context, however insensitive, should be admitted in the name of freedom of expression.

If only he agrees to pay a visit to these places where million of Jews were subjected to inhumane treatment and ultimately perished at Auschwitz, Poland and other concentration camps. He might have changed his views but If he doesn't, lets us not put him in a dungeon, simply for his lack of empathy for hus fellow human beings; That's what differentiate us from the dark days of 4th century where one's belief alone were justified for his decapitation. Despite the fact that such a Draconian laws are still prevalent in Iran.

What most people fail to understand is his follow up argument. He argues that when Holocaust took place in Europe and Nazi were responsible for it, why should the Palestinians have to pay? Why State of Israel are allowed to exploit this painful event for political ends? And if you question this very logic, you're quickly accused of being either Holocaust-denier or anti-semitic. which is frustrating thing to have in a "supposedly" democrate society. Every topic must be debatable, it is healthy.

In the case of President Ahmedenijad's personality, it was not a smart thing to say politically, If you're a statesman, you're expected behave like one, period. He shouldn't be a lightning rod whose controversial views drags his country's reputation through the mud.
I believe firmly whatever Ahmedinajed did or didn't, ultimately it wouldn't matter. It certainly wouldn't make the west's demand of total Iran subjugation simply disappear. However, it might have improved Iran's image in the wider audience's views but does that really have any concrete value in politics? Palestinians have considerable sympathy pouring around the world, yet that didn't stop them from experiencing something bordering on apartheid practice.
If historiy is any guide, Iran's reformist former President Mohammad Khatami suspended enriching uranium. Did the West reciprocate his good will? the West's demand was/is still the same. What seemed to change, however, under Ahmedinajad's leadership is rather his blunt talks and flamboyantly show he put as if he was the spokesman of the poor ,if anything. it might be undiplomatic but lets look at the substance rather than style.

kade

Sincerely yours

Obama gave up a powerful element in the negotiations with Iran.

Russia continues it's rhetoric, and there is little chance that Iran's leadership will fall into line on the nuclear arms front.

http://pacificgatepost.blogspot.com/2009/09/obamas-blunder-on-iran.html

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