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Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Speaks, America Listens
// And announces new sanctions against Iran
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, continuing his scandalous visit to the US, spoke at the UN General Assembly. In honor of the occasion Washington prepared him a special surprise. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice officially announced that the US intended to add the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran’s top military force, to its list of terrorist organizations. Accordingly, companies doing business with the Guard will come under sanctions, effecting Russian companies.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s current visit to the US for the UN General Assembly has become one of the most scandalous since Nikita Khrushchev’s journey to the UN in 1959. And this is already Ahmadinejad’s third year in a row, although earlier there wasn’t this kind of excitement surrounding his visits. His earlier unpleasantries were limited to visa delays as the State Department suspected him of participation in the capture of American soldiers in Tehran in 1979.
This year the American authorities didn’t place any barriers in front of the Iranian president, betting, rather, on public condemnation. The New York police denied him access only to Ground 0. Formally, this was not due to ideology, but simply an inability to guarantee his safety.
The gutter press also prepared the groundwork for the global villain’s visit. “Evil Has Landed,” read the headline of Daily News. “Madman From Iran,” wrote The New York Post.
The Iranian president, it seems, was expecting that kind of reception since his plan was to turn his US visit into a giant PR campaign. It started with an interview with American TV stations. Ahmadinejad tried to dispel, one by one, the stereotypes of him personally and of Iran in general by presenting himself as peaceful dove. “Iran has never attacked another country and doesn’t strive to increase its territory,” he said. When pointedly asked why Iran was equipping Iraqi fighters he perplexedly raised his eyebrows, “Why would we do that? We are friends with both Iraq and Afghanistan. Instability in Iraq and Afghanistan undermines our own security.” The more pointed the question, the more naïve the Iranian president tried to come across. He spoke at length about how he regrets the many victims in Iraqi and Afghanistan, including American soldiers. He added that he believes that the US will eventually attack Iran. “I don’t think that you can fix one mistake by making another,” he smiled, challenging US President George Bush to enter an open dialogue with him during the UN session.
Realizing the oratory prowess of Ahmadinejad, American politicians doubled their efforts. The alarm was due to Columbia University’s invitation for Ahmadinejad to speak. Almost all of the presidential candidates condemned the decision. Especially zealous in their denunciations were republicans John McCain and Mitt Romney, although democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama agreed with them. President Bush agreed with everyone that if he were the university president he would have not have invited Ahmadinejad, but added that it was yet another proof of the greatness of American democracy and free speech.
The lecture at Columbia University became the climax of Ahmadinejad’s visit and a clashing of two PR-civilizations. Many educational institutions released students from class to attend demonstrations protesting the lecture by the “holocaust denier”. As many as three thousand people gathered on the campus with signs reading “Ahmadinejad Get Out!”, “Stop persecuting women and gays!” and, as strange as it might seem, “Ahmadinejad – bad, Bush – even worse.”
It wasn’t the demonstration that put the Iranian president on edge, but the introduction by Columbia University President Lee Bollinger. He introduced Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as an “ignorant and cruel dictator.” The Iranian president replied that in Iran it was custom to respect students and professors and to not force one’s opinions on them as Bollinger did. Then he tried to persuade those present that he was not at all a “killer” (as many media sources name him). He said that he does not deny the Holocaust, but would like to be better studied by historians with different views. He said also that he doesn’t understand why the Holocaust, which happened half a century ago, is a reason for the Palestinian people to suffer.
He let up only toward the end of the lecture, deciding that the public had been subdued. When asked why the rights of women are violated in Iran he simply batted his eyes and said “in Iran women are respected even more than men.” When asked about the rights of sexual minorities (homosexuality is punishable by death in Iran) he answered “in Iran we don’t have homosexuals, unlike your country. None at all. I don’t even know who told you that we have them.” A part of the audience laughed, the others were horrified.
This wasn’t the end of the surprises for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. About the same time the Iranian president was trying to charm the students of Columbia University, the US State Department announced new sanctions against Iran. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that the US had evidence of the Guard’s participation in attacks on American soldiers in Iraq. In particular, the State Department’s suspicions fall on Quwwat al-Kuds, an elite subdivision of the Guard. As a result, Rice said, Quwwat al-Kuds should be added to the list of terrorist organizations.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is the strongest of Iran’s power structures. It is a voluntary, but very professional army under the personal command of the country’s spiritual leader. The Guard is usually given expensive arms purchased abroad.
The US Senate immediately reacted to Rice’s initiative. Two members of Congress’s upper house, independent Democrat Joe Liberman and Republican John Kyl, demanded a resolution adding the Guard to the list of terrorist organizations. The Iran Counter-Proliferation Act of 2007, proposed by Tom Lantos, included a similar clause at the request of Lieberman and Kyl.
According to a source close to the White House (the Russian governmental administration building), a decision on whether or not to add the Guard to the list of terrorist organizations may be made in the near future. That means a set of measures against companies doing business with the Guard will simultaneously come into effect.
Russian firms are among those that deliver weapons to the Guard. In 2005, for example, Russia and Iran signed a contract to deliver Russian missile defense weaponry worth $1.5 billion to Iran. According to First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, the agreement didn’t violate any international standards and that all the weaponry has already been delivered. It went, need one say, to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Rosoboronexport will likely come under the new sanctions as it has twice before for its military and technical cooperation with Iran. None of the contracts, of course, are made with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. They are all made with Iranian government. However the end user of Russia weapons is indeed the Guard more often than not. As of yesterday Rosoboronexport hadn’t received any official notification about new sanctions and therefore refrained from comment. Aviaexport and Tupolev may also become targets of the new anti-Iranian sanctions. Both companies are in negotiations with the Islamic Guard-sponsored company Pars Aviation Services Company to build a service center in Iran for Russian aircraft.
American senators are expected to make their statements today regarding the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp. We will see what kind of surprise the American administration has put together for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the UN General Assembly today. George Bush, who opened the General Assembly, in his usual manner counted Iran among Belarus, North Korea and Syria as the worst violators of the Declaration on Human Rights.
Mikhail Zygar
All the Article in Russian as of Sep. 26, 2007
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