A massive controversy has erupted in the United States, and across the world, around Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to New York, where he spoke at the United Nations and ColumbiaUniversity.
Who is this man and what does he want? Is he a new Hitler or a leader with understandable grievances who should be engaged in dialogue? Apart from the passion provoked and naïveté too often shown toward this leader, how can we accurately assess him?
Ahmadinejad is a demagogue on a lot of issues for three distinct reasons:
First, he is trying to use his radical stance—extremist even on the already extreme Iranian political spectrum—to gain control of the country. As head of a faction and due to personal ambition he is trying to displace other groups. Supreme Guide Ali Khamenei remains the single most powerful person in Iran and Ahmadinejad real rival within the country.
Second, Ahmadinejad is pursuing the Iranian Islamist revolution’s long-term goal—but one not always given top priority by the regime—of spreading Islamist revolution throughout the region and emerging as the most powerful force in the Middle East. In terms of promoting Iran’s primacy, there is an inherent nationalist as well as Islamist element in his policy.
Third, Ahmadinejad seems to be a true believer in the Iranian Islamist ideology which sees international politics as a struggle between the true followers of the deity and the allies of Satan.
Ahmadinejad’s goals, then, are his control over Iran, Iran’s control over the Persian Gulf area (especially Iraq), Israel’s destruction, Iranian leadership over the Middle East, the expulsion of Western (and especially American) influence from the region, and even world domination, in roughly that order.
Basically, Ahmadinejad is not a unique phenomenon in modern Middle East history. The role to be filled is that of the leader of the Arabs and Muslims as well as prime enemy of America, Israel, and the West. In this respect, he is comparable to Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser in the 1950s and 1960s; Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in the 1970s and 1980s; Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in the 1980s and 1990s; and Usama bin Ladin during the period before and especially after September 11, 2001. Yet Ahmadinejad has also become a symbol for the radical Islamist challenge to everyone else in the world
What makes Ahmadinejad different? The key element here, and one due to his own words and behavior, is that he seems not to be held back by caution, a rational calculation of the balance of forces, even if judged by the standard of his predecessors aside from bin Ladin of course. In other words, Ahmadinejad seems capable of anything and consequently far more dangerous. This conclusion is not just a matter of Western projection. I’ll bet that at times he scares even Khamenei.
Here are some elements in that set of problems:
--Ahmadinejad makes statements implying his belief that the end of the world is at hand and the Shia messiah is on the way. Thus, provoking war with Israel or the United States is not so much to be seen as risking the destruction of Iran’s Islamist regime as fulfilling its divine mission.
--For a number of reasons, Ahmadinejad thinks that his side is winning and the West is weak and in retreat. That could provoke him to even more extreme adventurism.
--While other Iranian leaders have spoken about Israel’s destruction, he is putting it higher on his agenda and is more likely to do something to try to implement this objective.
--The way things are going he will one day have nuclear weapons to play with in fulfilling his goals. Two important points should be noted here. First, the bombs and missiles would be held by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, his close ally and the main liaison between Iran and terrorist groups, itself raising the prospect of their being used. Second, even if Iran never used nuclear weapons the effect on the region would be devastating. Arab governments would rush to appease Iran; large numbers of Arabs would rush to join radical Islamist groups believing that this movement is the wave of the future.
--In Iraq, Iran has gone into a virtual state of war against the United States trying to project Tehran’s influence and killing American soldiers.
--Ahmadinejad has also become, for all practical purposes, the leader in promoting hatred of the United States and not only of Israel but of Jews in general.
What undercuts the dangers posed by Ahmadinejad? He still does not have full control over Iran and may never achieve this goal. Since he is a Shia Muslim and is not an Arab it is more difficult for him to play a leadership role over the largely Sunni Muslim Arabic-speaking world. Not impossible, as these barriers have been partly overcome, but harder nonetheless.
Thus, Ahmadinejad has not yet achieved the status of being equivalent to Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin as the world’s leading threat to peace and freedom but he is certainly trying to rise to this level.
It should be rather obvious that this is not a problem caused by lack of communication and that engagement with him will not have any moderating effect. He must be opposed and his regime pressured. Aside from the problems posed by the Iranian government in general, taking a tough stand against Ahmadinejad is necessary to convince his colleague-rivals that they must get rid of this guy and tone down their country’s behavior in order to ensure their own survival and that of their regime.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center http://gloria.idc.ac.il and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (GLORIA) Center http://meria.idc.ac.il. His latest books are The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan) and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley).
Professor Barry Rubin, Director, Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center Editor, Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal Editor, Turkish Studies
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Hitler again? Lets keep things in Biblical persective since this is supposed to be a "Christian world view." For once and for all, Hitler was not an abnormal evil in an other wise good world. Hitler was a normal evil in a normally evil world. No better or no worse than many of the Pgan Kings in the Bible. Hitler was a product of European arrogance. Had there been a equitable peace after WW1, the Nazis would have never come to power. The Isolationionists were right. America should never have entered "The great war" Had America stayed out of that one, "Those stupid Europeans" As we were calling them back then would have gotten tired of killing each other and come up with something better than the Treaty of Versales. When the French & Belgians occupied the Rine in 1922, they did everything to the Germans that the Nazis would do to them 20 years later so the Nazis more accurately "Returned the favor"
Europe created Hitler, Europe deserved Hitler. The Lord did intevene but in doing so, saved the West from a monster it created and deserved.
WE have been manipulating events in the Middle East since the end of WW2. We toppled leaders we didn't like and nstalled ones who would sell us all the cheap oil we wanted. WE refuse to drill for oil in our own back yard and insist that they mess up thier enviornment to make up for our demmand as we continue to drive our gas guzzlers. Since when is enforcing the Laws of Leviticus so evil? Our opostate churches have the same divorce, abortion, tenn pregnancy, drug abuse, and other vices of the world that Jesus calls us out of. Now we want to bomb other nations into tolerating these abominations? Craig, Foley, Gingrich, and other fallen leaders are proof that the so called "Religious right" are the same adulterous, fornicating, homosexual baby aborting perverts thier liberal counterparts are. The fact that they pay lip service to traditional morality while doing these things makes them worse. When Clinton had his affair, he was merily practicing what he believed in. And now you want to bomb them into our godless decadence thinly diguised as Grace? Sorry, there is no gospel of bombs & bullets. We need to get the plank out of our own eye before we point to the speck in others. Click here to reply to this post
Re: In Search of Ahmadinejad
Posted On: 10/03/07 08:56:05 PM
Age 61, MO
Before we go in search of Ahmadinejad, let's do a search of the history of the aggression that has duly inflamed the Muslim and particularly the Palestinian world. The sordid truth of deliberate Israeli ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians began in 1947-48. By the mid 1960s, Israeli forces already had expelled the Palestinians from more than half of the country, and, Israeli legend to the contrary, up to that point Israeli forces had encountered no effective resistance. Israel's quick and easy victory in the 1967 war demonstrated how limited future Arab resistance to Israeli takeover of Palestine was likely to be. As long as Israel remained under the US protective umbrella, military resistance was unlikely in any case. By 1967, the Israelis had driven more than 800,000 Palestinians to refugee camps in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and neighboring countries. The reality is that over 4.5 million Palestinians live in less than 10 percent of their ancient homeland. Moreover, the meandering wall, Israeli-only roads, and Palestinian "no-go" zones around settlements further reduce areas available to the Palestinians. In addition, that small area continues to shrink as Israeli settlements take more territory. What Palestinians now see is the probable total disappearance of their homeland in their lifetimes. Israel has built its state by expelling the Palestinians, taking their lands without compensation, and killing or imprisoning them where they resisted. These are facts. What is expressed in this article about Iran and Ahmadinejad is heresy. Any further pre emptive violent attacks on the Muslim people or their leaders will be treated by God as genocide. George Cancilla Click here to reply to this post
Re: Re: In Search of Ahmadinejad
Posted On: 10/10/07 01:32:41 PM
Age 57, TX
"Any further pre emptive violent attacks on the Muslim people or their leaders will be treated by God as genocide." I'm unclear. Just which "god" are you referring to in this quote? C3 Click here to reply to this post
Re: Re: In Search of Ahmadinejad
Posted On: 10/08/07 06:25:11 PM
Age 55, NE
I'm curious as to when in history the nation of "Palestine" is ever mentioned. You speak as though there is a distinctive nationality called "Palestinian." Can you give me any historical proof for a Palestinian people? I'm sure you know that their late leader Yasser Arafat was born in Egypt, under the name Mohammed Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini. How "Palestinian" was he? Click here to reply to this post
Re: Re: In Search of Ahmadinejad
Posted On: 10/07/07 08:47:53 AM
Age 20, NC
Mr. Cancilla, are you actually trying to excuse the Palestinian terrorists attacking Israel on almost a daily basis? If not, I have no idea what you are saying by making statements that sound more like talking points for these PLO types. Click here to reply to this post
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