Tornado Alley (PROG)

[F6]

What Ahmadinajad said at Columbia

Posted by Larry Johnson on Sep 24, 2007

(originally posted at Sic Semper Tyrannis 2007 [ http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2007/09/what-ahmadinaja.html (with comments)]. I was on a plane and only caught Ahmadinajad’s opening remarks. Pat gives us the condensed version. Based on what I have heard, the Iranian leader ran laps around all of his detractors. They looked small and petty.)

by W. Patrick Lang

I listened to it all.

His remarks were “bracketed” for me by those of Bollinger (the Columbia president) who sought to distance himself from any possible accusation of hospitality and Nora O’Donnell (MSNBC anchor) who sought to distance herself from any possible accusation of neutrality.

Ahmadinajad said:

- Scholars should seek the truth.

- That he does not dispute the facts of the Holocaust, but that he thinks that scholarship should continue on the details and on the effect on his part of the world. He particularly stressed the innocence of the Palestinian people in the matter of the Holocaust. Since scholarship continues on the matter of this subject (the Holocaust) under the sponsorship of the US Holocaust Museum, this was an interesting point.

- He said that the nature of Palestine/Israel should be determined by referendum among “Jewish Palestinians, Muslim Palestinians and Christian Palestinians.” This is a variation on the long standing Arab desire for either a bi-national state or a state that is not specifically a Jewish state. He did not specify whether his referendum would include Palestinians of the diaspora. That, of course, would make a difference in the outcome.

- He said that the Iranian nuclear enrichment program was forced on them by foreign defaults on agreements for nuclear electric assistance. He said that the Iranian sites are all under IAEA inspection and will remain that way. He also said that the concentration level of their enrichment did not meet the requirement for weapons production.

- He abjured the idea of nuclear weapons and said they do not want any. Presumably the IAEA inspection regime applies.

- When challenged on Iranian government support of international terrorist groups, he said that Iran herself is the victim of extensive terrorist attack sponsored by foreign governments. He clearly had in mind the MEK. He said that all parties should stop this kind of activity. There may have been an implied offer in that. THe Persians are subtle people. Perhaps they are too subtle for his audience

- He accepted the idea of wide negotiations with the US to resolve all differences..

- In response to a challenge by Bollinger, he invited Columbia to send delegations of faculty and students to any or all of Iran’s 400 universities.

- He insisted that Iranian women are free.

- He made a lame joke out of Iranian capital punishments for homosexual behavior. The esoteric gist was, “we don’t care what you think about it.”

It was quite a performance. If this were a presidential debate, I would judge him the winner based on rhetorical skill and coolness under fire. The student audience got quieter and quieter as he spoke. There was no booing at the end.

On the whole I think this event was meaningless. I think that the die is cast and that this will have no effect on the international game.

Colonel W. Patrick Lang is a retired senior officer of U.S. Military Intelligence and U.S. Army Special Forces (The Green Berets). He served in the Department of Defense both as a serving officer and then as a member of the Defense Senior Executive Service for many years. He is a highly decorated veteran of several of America’s overseas conflicts including the war in Vietnam. He was trained and educated as a specialist in the Middle East by the U.S. Army and served in that region for many years. He was the first Professor of the Arabic Language at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. In the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) he was the “Defense Intelligence Officer for the Middle East, South Asia and Terrorism,” and later the first Director of the Defense Humint Service.” For his service in DIA, he was awarded the “Presidential Rank of Distinguished Executive.” This is the equivalent of a British knighthood. He is an analyst consultant for many television and radio broadcasts. [this bio from http://turcopolier.typepad.com/about.html , via the 'About' button on Colonel Lang's blog http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/ ]

Copyright 2007 W. Patrick Lang

http://noquarterusa.net/blog/2007/09/24/what-ahmadinajad-said-at-columbia/ [with comments]

[F6 note -- which I'm inserting as much as anything for the sake of future searches -- the correct, or at least the more common, spelling is Ahmadinejad -- . . .]