Ahmadinejad with Larry King

[Dean]

Highlights:

Ahmadinejad:
The largest number of inspections in the history of the IAEA has been done in Iran. We have offered the IAEA the largest number of documents in its history. No country in the world has cooperated with the agency as much as Iran has done.

Ahmadinejad:
The Apartheid regime of South Africa was a fact as well, where is it today? The Soviet Union was a fact as well, where is it today? Did the Soviet Union collapse as a result talks and dialogue, or as a result of resilient resistance? In other words, at times you have to resist.


Ahmadinejad:
No. You see, we have no problems with Jewish people. There are many Jews who live in Iran today. In Iran, for every 150,000 people, we have one representative at the parliament, or the Majles.

For the Jewish community, even though there are only 20,000 in Iraq, they still have one independent member in parliament who has the same prerogative as the other members of parliament.
(I think he said "Iran" actually)


Ahmadinejad:
AHMADINEJAD (through translator): Let's just assume -- what I'm saying is let more research be done on this -- that history. There is a claim that the extent of the calamity was what it was. There are people who agree with it. There are people who disagree. Some completely deny it. Some absolutely agree with the whole account of it.


King:
People protesting that they don't have the same rights as other people? Homosexuals, you said last year, you denied there were homosexuals - there's homosexuals everywhere.

Ahmadinejad:
I said it is not the way it is here. In Iran this is considered a very - obviously most people dislike it. And we have actually a law regarding it and the law is enforced. It is a law that was passed, it was legislated and it is an act that is against human principles. A lot of things can happen. It can cause psychological problems, social problems that affect the whole society.

Remember, that God rules our - to improve human life. In our religion this act is forbidden and the Parliament and legislature, not now, 70 years ago, something that happened 70 - before the Islamic Republic became ...

Full Text (http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20080924/iranian-president-
admadinejad-larry-king-text.htm)
Discuss.

[Sendo]

The Jewish - Persian relations and the non-existent nuke bomb program should always be talking points with Iran. The IAEA says they're fine and the Jews have representation and are treated pretty well (prob. better than Saudi Arabia). The homophobia is bad, but seriously, is the US that much better, we only just recently lifted the sodomy ban.

[Dean]

The Jewish - Persian relations and the non-existent nuke bomb program should always be talking points with Iran. The IAEA says they're fine and the Jews have representation and are treated pretty well (prob. better than Saudi Arabia). The homophobia is bad, but seriously, is the US that much better, we only just recently lifted the sodomy ban.
Well, the U.S. government doesn't execute homosexuals for that reason, as far as I know. In any case, the Holocaust issue shouldn't be a talking point for Iran. They should point out the overzealous and irrelevant usage of Holocaust by Zionists, but leave it at that. To make it a political point to question the specific numbers of a systematic genocide is filthy, to say the least.

[jake williams]

There are aspects of Ahmadinejad's rhetoric which I agree with very strongly, like a lot of the anti-imperialist comments and some of the anti-Zionist comments, and a lot with which I disagree very strongly, like others of the anti-Zionist comments, especially most but not all of his views on the Holocaust, and of course the homophobia. The situation in women in Iran is ugly but more complex, and there isn't really space to go into it.

We also know, however, that he's undemocratic and he's hated at home. He's hardly a dictator, his government has at least as much legitimacy as Bush's (totally ignoring the iffy voting day shenanigans) and he has about as much popular support - which means he's undemocratic and he's hated at home.

All that said, I've been skeptical for years either that they have a military nuclear program or that they "support terror". I think there are a range of possibilities, the latter is a very ambiguous concept and falls on a very continuous range from supporting Palestinian self-determination to having its own military forces engage in terrorism, which for that matter even the Americans don't actually accuse them of. On the nuclear question, I would like to say re:

The IAEA says they're fine
that the IAEA's most recent position is that Iran should give them more access, and I agree, but again, I'm skeptical. Being skeptical does not mean I have any proof that Iran doesn't have or never had a nuclear weapons program, it means I seriously question the proposition. Because of the complexity of the issue, it's very hard to say why Ahmadinejad is going down the path he has. They may have a nuclear weapons program, or some other military secrets they don't want to divulge, perhaps about a past but discontinued nuclear weapons program, but it's all very hard to say. It'd be great if they were more transparent, but you can certainly understand their frustration in being asked to do so. Iran hasn't attacked another country in centuries. The nuclear power threatening it with force has attacked several new countries since the second more or less openly illegal major war this century it's engaged in, and there have been dozens more major actions which either aren't mentioned much, like Nicaragua, or are given a pretext of legality, like Afghanistan, and with all that America has cleaned up its act considerably over its history, the genocide of native peoples is a bit less open for example. Iran has a good argument if it wants to have nuclear weapons, but on balance it doesn't even seem to. The hypocrisy is completely unspeakable. It actually makes my cry sometimes, and I'm not saying this for dramatic effect. It's an atrocity in itself.

And I certainly don't trust anything the U.S. government says, especially about Iran. The U.S. government lies far more audaciously and aggressively than a lot of other institutions I'm aware of. Like you start to think they're doing it just for fun, it's like a weird mental disorder. Most governments and other powerful institutions lie, but they try to do it quietly, and it's almost like they feel bad about doing it. This is not how the U.S. government lies, the U.S. government increasingly seems like it's actually trying to be provocative, it is trying to fuck with people, it really looks like it wants you to know it will lie and get away with it. It's extremely ugly.

[progressive_lefty]

The Jewish - Persian relations and the non-existent nuke bomb program should always be talking points with Iran. The IAEA says they're fine and the Jews have representation and are treated pretty well (prob. better than Saudi Arabia). The homophobia is bad, but seriously, is the US that much better, we only just recently lifted the sodomy ban.

It was incredible to see the uproar amongst the media in the States when
Ahmadinejad made those comments about homosexuals. Isn't that the pot calling the kettle black? Is the US really in a postion to criticize a highly conservative country, when the Americans themselves are also a highly conservative country? Homosexuals aren't even sposed to be in the US Army, let alone some of the southern states. For heavens sake, it just points out the fact that the US cannot be taken seriosuly when it comes to human rights, gay rights, womens rights or any sorts of rights...

[jake williams]

For heavens sake, it just points out the fact that the US cannot be taken seriosuly when it comes to human rights, gay rights, womens rights or any sorts of rights...
Or anything. Nuclear weapons. Terrorism. The biggest and most spectacular pre-Fallujah act in the "War on Terrorism" was the assault on Baghdad - "shock and awe" - and it was the biggest and most explicit act of terrorism in maybe a decade, way bigger than on September 11th 2001. It's relatively minor, but it still blows my mind. They openly announced it as terrorism, and virtually no one has called them on it.

It really is an astoundingly hypocritical entity, like its hypocrisy is really becoming transcendental, they make a show of it, they elevate it to something new and terrifying, but none so romantically as I might be suggesting.

[counterblast]

"He's so [dreamy] that nothing else matters. And besides, have you heard the people in the Refomist parties?"
-My cousin on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

"Listen... I hate the Democrats as much as anyone... but look at the alternative. Plus you've gotta admit, Barrack Obama is kind of cute"
-My friend on Barrack Obama

Practically the same country.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Tha atrocious record of behaviour for the US in no way excuses Iran. I'm not too worried about imperialist action against Iran - they're not a pushover like Iraq was. I'd still want the US to lose if they did invade, as repelling foreign invaders allows countries to sort out their own problems without imperialism getting in the way and holding things back.

[jake williams]

Tha atrocious record of behaviour for the US in no way excuses Iran.
Not directly, no, but I think at least my own point was more subtle than that. Their atrocious record specifically with regard to the truth makes me not trust the accusations they make against Iran, particularly those which can't at all be independently verified. Their careless use of force lends legitimacy, now I don't support it but the fact is it at least creates an argument, for Iran's militarization. Doesn't mean it's right, but it at least gives a reason.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Iran is well within it's rights to defend itself from imperial aggression, including delevopment and production of nuclear weapons. So even if they are trying to deploy nuclear weapons, that does not objectively justify an invasion or economic sanctions.

I'm not saying you support either the US or Iran. But if one the US's bestest buddies, Saudi Arabia, has no problem with persecuting and executing homosexuals, why should Iran be any different? Personally, I've never actually heard American imperialists use Iran's institutional homophobia as an excuse to invade. What I've heard them go on about is Iran obtaining nuclear weapons. Still hypocrisy, but at least they aren't trying to appear progressive by doing so.

[jake williams]

Personally, I've never actually heard American imperialists use Iran's institutional homophobia as an excuse to invade.
Which is an interesting point, and worth analyzing. I think the response to this is that Iran is fit within a larger discourse about, well it's called "terrorism", or "militant Islam", and less sophisticatedly, sometimes just "Islam" or even Arabs in general, which of course refers neither to Iran or Afghanistan, except insofar as Al-Qaeda and elements of the Taleban are Arab, but that's another story. The point is you have a conflation of Hamas, Hizbullah, Gaddaffi, Al-Qaeda, Hussein, Iran, and some smaller elements, with the basic underlying connection being that they're all Islamic - except that Saddam Hussein was a secularist and was barely a Muslim. It's a completely unbelievable oversimplification, and a combination of elements who despise each other, the Sunni Arabs hate Iran who hates the Taleban and Al-Qaeda, the two of which are connected by different, and they hate the corrupt Arab dictatorships, especially but not only the very secularist ones such as Hussein's, but the Sunni Arabs also hate Al-Qaeda, and for that matter the corrupt dictatorships and monarchies which are oppressing them, including elements of the leadership of Fatah, and somewhat more complicatedly, the class and political tensions within Hamas and Hizbullah. The point is it's all tremendously complicated because you've tried to fit a very large and complex society, in fact it's not even one society, it's just an arbitrary group of Muslimish people whom some American voters can be convinced are a particular group of dangerous foreigners, and the attempt is made to fit them into a dichotomy as "enemy" for cynical political purposes.

The result of all this is that when you associate Iran - which people generally at least know is a Muslim country - with "terrorism", and when further it has a record I don't like and you don't like and most people on the left in our countries and in their countries don't like in regards to things like women's rights and the treatment of homosexuality, there's just an association. After they gave up on finding bin Laden, the primary argument, and this is true in Canada especially, for the war in Afghanistan is that we're on a grand crusade to save women and girls. This conflation of moral crusade and self-defence against terrorism is really dangerous, especially because of how it fits into the larger context of imperialism, which of course ultimately is what we're all tlaking about.

The point is that you don't have to say that Iran persecutes homosexuals, which they do, and that's why you want the right to nuclear first strike against them - there's a larger backdrop in the discourse that there's a certain category of people, backward Muslims, and they're justified to go to war against for a whole slate of reasons, and you don't have to mention every one of them every time you might like to try to formulate opposition to any given state, entity, etc. because it's seen as all the same. Moreover you avoid details, so for example you will have people unconsciously believing that it's just to fight a war against Iraq and Saddam Hussein because Arab-Muslim-Terrorists mistreat women, even though Saddam Hussein did more for women's rights in the Arab world than almost any other political leader (I'm not talking about activists or opposition groups, I'm talking about leaders of governments). And there is a larger context in which different conflicts are in the interests of defending gay rights, for a very clear and again cynical reason, there are unfortunately some parts of the American public who don't need much coaxing to fight a war against other countries, but there's a whole political and intellectual and arguably even socioeconomic class of folks who need grand moralistic reasons, who don't like war but love gays, and ultimately really love imperialism, especially grand moralistic imperialism, which is usually the worst of the lot.