Reidblog [The Reid Report blog]

The intensifying war of words between Iran and the United States reached the floor of the United Nations last night when the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, accused America and Britain of violating international law.

Mr Ahmadinejad's speech only once directly referred to the United States, but was infused throughout with criticism of the "exclusionist policies" of what he called the "hegemonic power" and its grip over the UN through its membership of the security council.

"The question needs to be asked: if the governments of the United States or the United Kingdom who are permanent members of the security council, commit aggression, occupation and violation of international law, which of the organs of the UN can take them to account?" he said.

Hours earlier, at the same lectern, President George Bush accused the Tehran regime of supporting terrorism. He told the Iranian people that the greatest obstacle to a free future came from their own rulers, who had "chosen to deny you liberty and to use your nation's resources to fund terrorism, and fuel extremism, and pursue nuclear weapons". ...

...Mr Ahmadinejad made no reference to Iran's nuclear activities, instead reminding delegates that America had itself used the bomb.

He accused the US of using terrorism as a "pretext for the continued presence of foreign forces in Iraq". He also criticised Washington's support for Israel, and accused the UN security council of sitting "idly by for many days" while atrocities were committed in Lebanon this summer.

In his 15-minute address, President Bush chose to speak over the heads of several world leaders seated before him in the general assembly chamber in New York and address their people directly. He challenged the delegations not just from Iran, but also Syria and Sudan.

He invoked the interests of "ordinary men and women free to determine their own destiny" and expressed his desire for a world in which "the extremists are marginalised by the peaceful majority". ...

Mr Bush's speech was the last in a series he has given around the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks. The addresses were conceived by the White House as an attempt to regain control of the political agenda and steer it away from the troubles in Iraq towards the need to stand firm in the so-called war on terror.

But Mr Bush spoke against a troubled backdrop. Earlier Kofi Annan, making his last speech to the general assembly as UN secretary general before he steps down at the end of this year, painted a grim picture, saying the past 10 years had "not resolved, but sharpened" the problems of an unjust global economy, disorder, and contempt for human rights. "We face a world whose divisions threaten the very notion of an international community upon which this institution stands," he said.

Mr Bush denied that his administration was anti-Muslim and dismissed criticism that US efforts to spread democracy in the region were backfiring. "The reality is that the stability we thought we saw in the Middle East was a mirage. For decades, millions of men and women in the region had been trapped in oppression and hopelessness. And these conditions left a generation disillusioned and made this region a breeding ground for extremism."

Addressing himself "to the people of Iran", he said he admired their rich history and vibrant culture, and said they deserved an opportunity to determine their own future.

Mr Ahmadinejad's aggressive speech adds further heat to the dispute over Iran's nuclear programme that is dominating discussions at the UN. The French president, Jacques Chirac, told the general assembly that "dialogue must prevail. Our goal is not to call regimes into question."...

The meeting was opened by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who made an urgent plea for peace in the Middle East.

Mr Annan also raised the Darfur crisis in Western Sudan, which he described as the UN's biggest challenge.

In his address, he said ongoing violence there "makes a mockery of our claim to shield people from abusers".

BBC diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus says the issue hangs like a dark shadow over this session, raising questions about the UN's effectiveness and relevance.

The Security Council has backed the despatch of a full UN peacekeeping mission to protect civilians, but the Sudanese government has not approved the force. ...

... Mr Bush said that if the Khartoum authorities did not do so quickly, the UN had to act. "Your lives and the United Nation's credibility are at stake," he added, addressing the people of Darfur.

The US president also announced the appointment of a special US envoy to the region.

“The U.S. government thinks that it’s still the period after World War II,” Ahmadinejad said in an interview with Brian Williams, anchor and managing editor of “NBC Nightly News,” a mindset that led Bush to believe that he “can rule, therefore, over the rest of the world.”

But “the world has changed,” he said. “Nations are awakened now. They want their rights — equal rights, and fair ones. The time for world empires has ended.” ...

...“Why is the U.S. government so against our people?” Ahmadinejad, speaking through a translator, asked in the interview with NBC News. “They speak of war so easily, as if it’s on their daily agenda. We never speak of war.”

Nuclear program called peaceful

Ahmadinejad reiterated that Tehran’s uranium enrichment was intended to support a peaceful nuclear power program.

“We are against the atomic bomb,” he said. “We believe bombs are used only to kill people. And we are against killing people.”

And he accused Bush of hiding behind the nuclear issue to mask the U.S. government’s grudge for the overthrow of the shah in 1979.

“We all know that Iran’s nuclear issue is an excuse,” he said. “It’s been 27 years now that we've faced the hostility of the U.S. administration in various forms.”

“We thought we might be able to have friendly relations with the United States,” he added. “But the American government chose the wrong path, a path which is still continuing.”

Referring to America’s own nuclear arsenal, Ahmadinejad said, “We think that people who produce the atomic bomb cannot, in fact, speak of supporting world peace.”

Ahmadinejad calls U.S. leaders hypocrites

Ahmadinejad portrayed himself as a simple man who was plucked from the obscurity of academia to face the might of an American monolith. And he repeatedly accused the United States of hypocrisy in calling for other nations to dismantle their weapons while it maintained the largest military arsenal in the world.

“Again, I ask, who has the nuclear bomb and has used it before?” he asked. “Which one is a bigger danger? One that’s trying to develop a fuel for peaceful purposes? Or the one that made a nuclear weapon?”

Ahmadinejad called his country's atomic program "transparent" and said it was "under the watchful eyes of IAEA inspectors" - a reference to the U.N. nuclear watchdog. ...

... Ahmadinejad repeated his claim that the World War II Allies created a Jewish state "at the expense of millions of rightful" occupants - a reference to Palestinians.

"Can any logic or law justify this tragedy?" Ahmadinejad asked.

He then turned to another favorite subject when he voiced doubts that the Holocaust happened, saying the arguments used for the creation of Israel "are so weak" that its supporters "want to silence" the doubters.

Without ever naming the United States, Ahmadinejad said the Security Council was "practically incapacitated by some powers to even call a cease-fire."

He didn't mention Israel by name - but repeatedly referred to it as "the occupiers" and "the Zionist regime."

Ahmadinejad also charged that in Iraq, "the occupiers are incapable of establishing security" - even making the wacky claim that the United States and new Iraqi government had freed captured terrorists.

He said America wants instability in Iraq because it "serves as the pretext" for continued occupation.

Again and again, he returned to the theme that the Security Council had failed to stop "tragedies," like this past summer's Lebanese war.

FRUM: This speech represents the collapse of the President’s Iran policy, and I think it will be seen — when Iran does succeed in going nuclear, this speech will be seen as a turning point in which the United States made the decision — the decision has been made — they formally announced to the world that it wasn’t going to do anything much to stop it. I think in conjunction with President Chirac’s remarks this morning, where he opposed any kind of sanction — and that’s important because Chirac is not just the leader of France. France is one of the three European countries — France, Germany and Britian — that the United States had subcontracted the job of negotiating with the Iranians. The Iranians have lied to the group, stiffed it, and up until now the French have been the most robust, the strongest, of the European 3. The French are saying, “no consequences,” and President Bush today said, “OK.” And he went to the UN and he had these words of respect for the Iranian people, but nothing about the huge next item on the UN agenda, which is whether or not we will enforce the IAEA rulings on Iran that say they are cheating, they are lying, they are making their way toward a nuclear weapon. We at the IAEA are bunkrupt. It must go to the Security Council. Obviously, it is not going to the Security Council. And I think we are heading toward a nuclear Iran.

hours after President Bush appeared at the United Nations to offer mostly soothing words of encouragement to the peoples of the Middle East who live under the barbarous yoke of tyranny, Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hit the U.N. stage last night with an address blatantly positioning himself as a fearless world leader willing to confront the supposed tyrants of the West.
Ahmadinejad didn't come out like a Soviet leader of yore and scream, "We will bury you," which had commentators in the immediate aftermath of his speech falling over themselves to welcome a "kinder and gentler" Ahmadinejad (that was Wolf Blitzer of CNN).

And indeed, Ahmadinejad didn't say he would wipe Israel off the map or deny the Holocaust.

Evidently we're supposed to grade on a curve now.

Sure, he was probably one of the student monsters who took 51 of our diplomats captive and held them hostage for 444 days back in 1979-80, but let L'il Mahmoud now stand in front of the green U.N. marble without a tie and with a cute little beard, and suddenly he's a Tehran Munchkin.

True, he did spend a lot of time in his speech talking about peace and justice and the pain of the oppressed and candy canes and cake and lollipops. But that was pure window dressing.

Substantively, Ahmadinejad was setting himself up as a revolutionary reformer seeking to overhaul the international system to make it fairer for the world's less powerful countries.

He offered up a cockamamie scheme for the reorganization of the Security Council - one that would empower voting representatives from various organizations that are run for the convenience of tinpot dictators and thugs, groups like the so-called Non-Aligned Movement and the Union of Islamic Nations.

"Who will speak for the oppressed?" wondered this spokesman for an "Islamic democracy" so corrupt that he was only elected the titular head of his government because vast numbers of possible voters sat out the election in protest.

The notion of an unjust concentration of world power in the hands of Western democracies is an old Leftist conceit, and though Ahmadinejad is the president of a pointedly reactionary religious regime, he sounded very much like a 1970s Leftist - including talk about "imperialism" that was so old I could practically visualize the gas tank of a Ford Pinto blowing up while he was speaking.

And while he insisted that his nation only wants to develop "peaceful" nuclear energy, Ahmadinejad made a point of claiming that the United States dominates world discussion because of its nuclear arsenal. If indeed that is what he believes, then surely a person who wishes the world system to be rebalanced in his own country's favor would find the pursuit of nuclear weaponry an urgent and overwhelming necessity.