Big Man on Campus

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was welcomed at the University of Columbia for a “robust debate” on “global issues,” as outlined by Columbia University President Lee Bollinger.

What the Iranian President was subjected to instead was an all-out attack by the University President, attending students, American policymakers and the media. In his introduction, Bollinger would go on to refer to the Iranian President as a "petty and cruel dictator" that lacked “intellectual courage.”

The American media was not quite as kind. Headlines that greeted President Ahmadinejad included “The Evil Has Landed” and “Little Man on Campus.” Indicative of these headlines, the coverage was harsh on the Iranian President and overtly unfair. Known inconsistencies and past errors in reporting were repeated with alarming consistency and vigor throughout the media. The infamous desire for Ahmadinejad to “wipe Israel off the map” and his criticism of the holocaust “myth” were talking points and news-leads in most newspapers and television broadcasts.

"Ahmadinejad did not say he was going to wipe Israel off the map because no such idiom exists in Persian," clarified Juan Cole, a Middle East specialist at the University of Michigan. "He did say he hoped its regime, i.e., a Jewish-Zionist state occupying Jerusalem, would collapse."

Similarly, his infamous words about the holocaust have also been said to be mistranslated and construed as the media wanted them to appear: hateful, intolerant, and flippant. Monday would be the Iranian President’s chance to clarify his statements and set his words straight.

However, America was not interested in listening to Ahmadinejad. Instead, his visit was used to further two goals: inflame public opinion towards the Iranian leader and his representative country and to perpetuate the façade of free, unabated speech in America.

"He's the head of a state sponsor of terror,” said President Bush. “Yet, an institution in our country gives him the chance to express his point of view, which really speaks to the freedoms of the country.”

Ahmadinejad was quick to see the hypocrisy of this freedom of speech.

"In Iran, tradition requires that when we demand a person to invite as a speaker we actually respect our students and the professors by allowing them to make their own judgment,” said Ahmadinejad. “And we don't think it's necessary before this speech is even given to come in with a series of [insults].”

Luckily for Ahmadinejad, he was not arrested for voicing his opinions publicly, unlike American citizens have been under the Bush administration. One such incident took place September 18th of this year, when Leah Bolger, David Barrows, Christine Rainwater, Anne Kitridge, and Anne Katz, who was reciting the Constitution, were arrested by Capitol Police while attending a rally sponsored by Veterans for Freedom in Upper Senate Park on Capitol Hill where U.S. Senators Joe Lieberman, John McCain and Lindsey Graham spoke.

A popular critique of Ahmadinejad’s appearance was his supposed dodging of the questioning, especially on the issues of nuclear war, terrorism, and his views on the holocaust. Yet his answers resonated clearly.

“If someone comes and explodes bombs around you, threatens your president, members of the administration, kills the members of the senate or congress, how would you treat them… The Iranian nation is a victim of terrorism. For 26 years ago where I worked, close to where I work, in the terrorist operation, the elected president of the Iranian nation and the elected prime minister of Iran lost their lives in a bomb explosion. They turned into ashes. A month later in another terrorist operation, 72 members of our parliament and highest ranking officials, including four ministers and eight deputy ministers' bodies were shattered into pieces as a result of terrorist attacks. Within six months over 4,000 Iranians lost their lives assassinated by terrorist groups. All this carried out by the hand of one single terrorist group. Regretfully, that same terrorist group now today in your country is being operating under the support of the U.S. administration, working freely, distributing declarations freely, and their camps in Iraq are supported by the U.S. government…

We need to address the root causes of terrorism and eradicate those root causes.
live in the Middle East. For us, it's quite clear which powers sort of incite terrorists, support them, fund them. We know that. Our nation, the Iranian nation, through history has always extended a hand of friendship to other nations. We're a cultured nation. We don't need to resort to terrorism.
We've been victims of terrorism ourselves, and it's regrettable that people who argue they're fighting terrorism, instead of supporting the Iranian people and nation, instead of fighting the terrorists that are attacking them, they're supporting the terrorists and then turn the fingers to us. This is most regrettable.”

Media pundits cleverly pointed out the lack of a specific reference to a terror organization. A moment of reflection easily illuminates this organization as the American government and specifically, covert operations conducted through the US military and the CIA, some would say the largest organization of state-sponsored of terrorism.

On the topic of nuclear war, Ahmadinejad had this to say:

“Our nuclear program, first and foremost, operates within the framework of law, and second, under the inspections of the IAEA, and thirdly, they are completely peaceful. The technology we have is for enrichment below the level of 5 percent level, and any level below 5 percent is solely for providing fuel to power plants. Repeated reports by the IAEA explicitly say that there is no indication that Iran has deviated from the peaceful path of its nuclear program. We're all well aware that Iran's nuclear issue is a political issue; it's not a legal issue.
The International Atomic Energy Organization -- Agency has verified that our activities are for peaceful purposes. But there are two or three powers that think that they have the right to monopolize all science and knowledge. And they expect the Iranian people, the Iranian nation, to turn to others to get fuel, to get science, to get knowledge that's indigenous to itself -- to humble itself. And then they would of course refrain from giving it to us too. So we're quite clear on what we need. If you have created the fifth generation of atomic bombs and are testing them already, what position are you in to question the peaceful purposes of other people who want nuclear power? We do not believe in nuclear weapons, period. It goes against the whole grain of humanity. So let me just tell a joke here. I think the politicians who are after atomic bombs or are testing them, making them -- politically they are backward, retarded.”

Though not addressed at the speech, Ahmadinejad clarified his nation’s stance on war. "Iran will not attack any country," Ahmadinejad told the AP. Iran has always maintained a defensive policy, not an offensive one and has "never sought to expand its territory."

He also believed that the U.S. is not preparing for war with Iran. “I believe that some of the talk in this regard arises first of all from anger. Secondly, it serves the electoral purposes domestically in this country. Third, it serves as a cover for policy failures over Iraq."

Another point of contention in the Iranian leader’s dialogue was his statement about homosexuals in Iran. His exact quote from the translation read:

“In Iran we don't have homosexuals like in your country. We don't have that in our country. In Iran we do not have this phenomenon.”

Another suggested interpretation of this statement is that he was referring to the homosexual culture that has gained legitimacy and been embraced in American society, not that Iran does not have any homosexual individuals.

Perhaps the most contentious issue, however, is the Iranian leader’s views on the holocaust, which he has been accused of denying altogether. He had this to say about his belief:

“Can you argue that researching a phenomenon is finished forever, done? Can we close the books for good on a historical event? There are different perspectives that come to light after every research is done. Why should we stop research at all? Why should we stop the progress of science and knowledge? You shouldn't ask me why I'm asking questions. You should ask yourselves why you think that it's questionable, why you want to stop the progress of science and research. Do you ever take what's known as absolute in Physics? We had principles in mathematics that were granted to be absolute in mathematics for over 800 years, but new science has gotten rid of those absolutisms, come forward other different logics of looking at mathematics and sort of turned the way we look at it as a science altogether after 800 years. So we must allow researchers, scholars to investigate into every phenomenon, God, universe, human beings, history, and civilization. Why should we stop that? I'm not saying that it didn't happen at all. This is not that judgment that I am passing here. I said in my second question, granted this happened, what does it have to do with the Palestinian people?

When criticized by the person asking the question that research into the facts of the holocaust would represent a denial that something terrible occurred in Europe in those years, Ahmadinejad responded:

“Allow me. After all, you're free to interpret what you want from what I say, but what I'm saying with full clarity. In the first question, I'm trying to actually uphold the rights of European scholars. In the field of science and research, I'm asking, there's nothing known as absolute. There's nothing sufficiently done, not in physics for certain. There's been more research on physics than it has on the holocaust, but we still continue to do research on physics. There's nothing wrong with doing it. This is what man wants. They want to approach a topic from different points of views. Scientists want to do that, especially an issue that has become the foundation of so many other political developments that have unfolded in the Middle East in the past 60 years. Why do we stop it altogether? You have to have a justified reason for it. The fact it was researched sufficiently in the past is not a sufficient justification in my mind.”

While Ahmadinejad was grilled by American citizens, American citizens have not been as rigorous in questioning their own leaders. A report released Sunday by Newsweek stated that former Cheney Middle East adviser David Wurmser told a small group several months ago that Cheney was considering asking Israel to strike the Iranian nuclear site at Natanz. A military response by Iran would then give Washington an excuse to launch airstrikes of its own.

It is telling that Americans now are more critical of foreign leaders than their own. While Ahmadinejad is subjected to intense scrutiny, Bush administration officials have been given a virtual free pass to trample on our constitution, arrest dissenters, and even legitimized the use of martial law without any oversight.

The founding fathers expected we the people to subject our leaders to this same type of inquiry into their positions and policies and we have failed them. James Madison said it best, “The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home."