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USADI
Commentary
The Confidence of a Brute
During his week-long stay in New York, Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad performed exactly as a veteran thug
turned president would. And he did a good job of
being brutish himself. In that sense, he did not
at all disappoint his benefactors back in Iran
and in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp.
He was offensive, brazen, abrasive and crass in
substance and tone. Wearing a repugnant smile,
he, not so implicitly, mocked his interlocutors
and persistently accused them of being the
mouthpiece of administration by asking the
questions of the “others”, as if he was being
interviewed by a state-run media in Iran.
He lied time after time and responded evasively
to many questions dealing with Tehran’s nuclear
program, support for Hezbollah, meddling in Iraq
and his denial of the Holocaust with a
question-like tirade against everyone and
everything.
Well, Ahmadinejad had not come to the United
States and the UN General Assembly for a charm
offensive. That was the task of the smiley
demagogue, former president Mohammad Khatami in
his UN appearances.
Ahmadinejad had not come to New York to win
hearts and soften his adversaries or sow
divisions among them by being pleasant. If
anything he brought a lot of bi-partisan unity
in the United States political circles. The
House of Representatives passed resolutions
concerning political and human rights abuses in
Iran on the same day Ahmadinejad was to speak at
the UN. One resolution, recognizing the 100th
anniversary, of the Iran’s Constitutional
Revolution, expressed the lawmakers’ hope for
political change in Iran.
Ahmadinejad had indeed come to intimidate,
bully, and shake the international resolve. He
had come to embolden the appeasers and advocates
of his regime and energize the his constituency
in Iran.
Ahmadinejad could have called his trip a
complete success if it were not for the large
and peaceful rally of Iranian-American
supporters of Iran’s major opposition coalition
National Council of Resistance and its leader
Maryam Rajavi across from the UN building. With
chants of “Nuclear Terrorist Ahmadinejad out of
UN,” and “Democratic Change for Iran,” they held
exhibits on Iran’s appalling human rights
condition, as well as street plays enacting
scenes of political and public executions in
Iran. The Iranian dissidents presented
Ahmadinejad with the only real challenge he
faced during his entire New York visit.
Meanwhile, much has been said in recent days
about Ahmadinejad’s “confidence” in the way he
had handled himself during speeches and
interviews. And why not; one year of continued
appeasement does magic. It emboldens and injects
confidence to the appeased. Remember Hitler
after Munich agreement with Neville Chamberlain?
But make no mistake. Appeasement is not the root
cause of Ahmadinejad’s apparent “confidence”.
Talk to any of the former political prisoners
who were lucky enough to survive mullahs’ firing
squads and torture chambers, and they would tell
you that it was the exact same “confidence” and
dogged attitude which their interrogators
displayed in the dungeons: confidence of a
ruthless brute.
Some even have said he seemed like a man with
nerves of steel. Well, no less should be
expected form a man who spent his younger years
in the 1980s in the notorious Evin prison as an
interrogator and executioner. He was nicknamed
“the Terminator” by co-executioners who saw his
“steely” nerves when shooting Coup de Grace at
the fallen dissidents in front of firing squads.
Few days before Ahmadinejad’s trip to New York,
another political inmate in Iran was murdered in
prison by Ahmadinejad’s former colleagues.
Valliollah Feyz-Mahdavi, 28, a sympathizer of
Iran’s main opposition group People’s Mojahedin
was killed after nine days of a hunger strike.
Not very long before Feyz-Mahdavi’s murder,
another political prisoner Akbar Mohammadi had
met the same fate. Ahmad Batebi, a student
activist arrested during the 1999 uprising in
Tehran, is in danger of losing his life
according to Amnesty International.
As Ahmadinejad was talking about injustice and
violence in the world during his UN speech, a
teenage boy was executed in public in Iran;
another five were executed in the same fashion
several days later.
Too bad no reporter challenged Ahmadinejad’s
talk of “justice” by raising these blatant and
very recent cases of injustice committed under
his regime in Iran. It might be that everyone
was so overwhelmed by the “confidence” spewing
out of the mouth of an
executioner-turned-president that they forgot to
ask. (USADI)
USADI
Commentary reflects the viewpoints of the US Alliance
for Democratic Iran in respect to issues and events
which directly or indirectly impact the US policy toward
Iran |