Does Ahmedinejad have a fair point?

The United States reluctantly allowed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad to come to New York to attend the UN’s annual general assembly meeting this week. The Iranian president was, however, not allowed to visit Ground Zero, where the twin towers once stood, as there was a general consensus on it being inappropriate. What the US officials could not stop was the invitation Columbia University sent to the President to lecture and interact with students of the university. This at a time when Iran-US relations are at their lowest since the Iranian revolution nearly three decades back and with open talk of a possible military strike by the US or through an Israeli proxy on key Iranian nuclear sites in Natanz, Isfahan and maybe Tehran. So what one witnessed made for interesting TV viewing while at the same time spoke highly of the freedom of speech that the US considers a cardinal pillar in its democracy.

The liberty to use freedom of speech worked both ways with the president of Columbia University using strong language to introduce the Iranian president as a “cruel and petty dictator” and Ahmedinejad returning the favor with some strong views on Israel, the Palestinian people, Iraq and the contentious issue of Iran’s nuclear program. The Iranian president spoke at length about his controversial statements on wiping Israel of the face of the earth and about the holocaust, which according to him needs continuous research to better understand its cause, reasons, extent and outcome. Out of the entire two hour rambling that was the president’s speech and lopsided views on global affairs, two points struck out very visibly. The first were his views on the Israel-Palestine issue. While it is no ones case to propagate a view to dismantle Israel, which while it needs to do more by way of reconciliation with the Palestinian people so that a credible Palestine comes into existence, is no doubt the only functioning Western style democracy in a region where democracy is a scarce commodity. But Ahmedinejad has questioned the very formation of Israel in 1948 which led to the mass migration of ethnic Palestinians from their native lands. The pretext to constitute the state of Israel is what the Iranian president is harping on. In his view, which does hold some merit, the holocaust led to a huge outpouring of horror and grief over the plight of the Jews at the hands of the Nazis. Also, by the end of the Second World War, Jews had become a powerful, rich and influential lobby in countries that mattered and soon a country, as promised by God, was formed by driving out people who had lived there under British occupation. Ahmedinejad, and many in the Arab world feel that why should Palestinians and by that token, Muslim Arabs, pay the price for crimes committed by Europeans and by the same token Christians. He further argues that while the crime was committed by those in the West, the price is being paid by people who were not even remotely connected with the outrage. While this scholarly debate is immensely profound, it does hold minute merit. For sixty years Palestinians have paid the price for actions of the West and aggression by the Israeli state. They resorted to violence and terrorism which further impeded their cause for a free state. When the same Palestinians voted out a corrupt Fatah and brought in Hamas, the West hypocritically chose to isolate Hamas since it does not recognize Israel. The Palestinians have suffered enough and now stand a disillusioned lot for the failure democracy has brought them. This version of ‘democracy but only if it’s my man” has created a generation of youths who despise democracy as a front for Western domination in their affairs. The rejection of the democratically elected Hamas along with the war in Iraq will cause irreparable damage to the very institution of democracy, which is today being unfairly used as a cover for neo-imperialism in the Middle East.

The other important point raised by the Iranian President was on his country’s nuclear program. He argued that the US had no business to talk of non-proliferation when they themselves have researched and manufactured “fifth generation” nuclear weapons. He insisted that Iran’s nuclear ambitions are limited solely for energy generation and not weapons production. Scoff as much as we want to, the critical issue at the heart of the nuclear impasse is again Israel. The US has hedged all its hopes for the Middle East on Israel. By arming them with nuclear weapons, the US as not only provided a very effective tool for deterrence it has in the process accelerated the desire by Arab states to get the famed “Arab Bomb”. Many governments in the region were initially pleased with Pakistan going nuclear and called that as the first “Muslim Bomb”, but with Pakistan swaying more towards the US than on the dispositions in the Middle East, the quest by Iran and Syria to get the bomb has only increased over the years. Then again, by arming Israel, the US may have protected a friend but at the cost of initiating an arms race amongst countries in the region rushing towards nuclear deterrence. In the context of nuclear energy, the nuclear standoff between the US and Iran holds importance for India. Many countries, including Iran, are going to use the Indo-US nuke deal as an example of the US using different yardsticks for different regimes depending on their relations with the world’s sole superpower. Then again, it has never been India’s intention to wipe nations of the face of the earth.

The speech by Ahmedinejad, which precedes his address to the UN general assembly, only harped on the existing differences between Iran and the West while doing precious little in way of reconciliation. While the prospect of a US invasion of Iran seems distant and remote, given the fact that the US finds itself stretched in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US is clearly going to harden its stand on Iran with the new found support of a vocal French president and his foreign minister. The Iranian President used his US visit to raise some important points and to sell himself to the American citizens. He may not go back with a happy report card, with the American media choosing to ridicule his stand on various issues, it does not take away the essence of his message or the importance of a man who could provide for the next flashpoint of conflict in the Middle East.