The Man in Tehran, in His Own Words
It would require the patience of Job to respond to the litany of grievances that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sent to George W. Bush last week--for litany is precisely what the rambling 18-page letter amounted to. Even an administration more inclined to diplomatic engagement than the Bush administration would be hard pressed to find hopeful openings for negotiation in this tangled, tortuous missive. It exudes the self-righteous piety and pseudo humility of a profoundly arrogant and ill-formed mind.
Ranging from the historical to the hysterical, it marshals scores of semitruths--and roughly an equal number of outright untruths--to blame America for most of the ills besetting the contemporary world. And it advances its "argument" on the back of one recurrent rhetorical ploy: "Can one be a follower of Jesus Christ [peace be upon him], the great messenger of God," Ahmadinejad writes, and still be responsible for everything from killing thousands of innocent civilians in Iraq (even though it was good to depose Saddam Hussein, he admits) to supporting a Zionist regime with no rightful claim to its land to denying peace-loving nations such as Iran the right to scientific and technological progress? "Can the possibility of scientific achievements being utilized for military purposes be reason enough to oppose science and technology altogether?" he ask with typical disingenuousness.
Still, the letter is inadvertently revealing--and potentially even useful--on several points:
-- The document's seemingly unedited, unmediated quality suggests that it was composed without the help of professional diplomats. Either the president spurns his nation's diplomatic service, or it wisely distances itself from him. Either way, the letter raises questions about the real power and influence Ahmadinejad wields within the Iranian state.
-- It is depressingly true that Ahmadinejad, as he essentially asserts, speaks not only for aggrieved, true-believing Iranians but for a goodly part of the Arab "street." His accusations constitute a kind of agenda-in-negative for U.S. public diplomacy. Unless it is possible to counter the half-truths, distortions, and misconceptions that run through this letter--including the now hoary charge that 9/11 could not have happened "without coordination with [U.S.] intelligence and security services"--prospects for winning the battle for hearts and minds in the Middle East look dim.
-- Although elected, Ahmadinejad makes no pretense of believing in democracy or republican government. "Liberalism and western style democracy have not been able to realize the ideals of humanity," he writes, asserting that only submission to monotheism and divinely ordained justice will save the world from discord, poverty, and war. This is the Islamist creed purely put--and it is ripe for rebuttal with examples from those idealized early caliphates that in reality were rife with injustice and civil strife.
His command of Islamic history, like that of most Islamists, is conveniently selective. A polite reminder of the repeated failures of theocracy might be an appropriately modest response.
This story appears in the May 22, 2006 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
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