[R-G] Turning Ahmadinejad into public enemy No. 1

[Macdonald Stainsby]

Turning Ahmadinejad into public enemy No. 1

Demonizing the Iranian president and making his visit
to New York seem controversial are all part of the
neoconservative push for yet another war.

By Juan Cole

Salon.Com
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/09/24/ahmadinejad/

Sep. 24, 2007 | Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's
visit to New York to address the United Nations General
Assembly has become a media circus. But the controversy
does not stem from the reasons usually cited.

The media has focused on debating whether he should be
allowed to speak at Columbia University on Monday, or
whether his request to visit Ground Zero, the site of
the Sept. 11 attack in lower Manhattan, should have
been honored. His request was rejected, even though
Iran expressed sympathy with the United States in the
aftermath of those attacks and Iranians held
candlelight vigils for the victims. Iran felt that it
and other Shiite populations had also suffered at the
hands of al-Qaida, and that there might now be an
opportunity for a new opening to the United States.

Instead, the U.S. State Department denounced
Ahmadinejad as himself little more than a terrorist.
Critics have also cited his statements about the
Holocaust or his hopes that the Israeli state will
collapse. He has been depicted as a Hitler figure
intent on killing Israeli Jews, even though he is not
commander in chief of the Iranian armed forces, has
never invaded any other country, denies he is an anti-
Semite, has never called for any Israeli civilians to
be killed, and allows Iran's 20,000 Jews to have
representation in Parliament.

There is, in fact, remarkably little substance to the
debates now raging in the United States about
Ahmadinejad. His quirky personality, penchant for
outrageous one-liners, and combative populism are
hardly serious concerns for foreign policy. Taking
potshots at a bantam cock of a populist like
Ahmadinejad is actually a way of expressing another,
deeper anxiety: fear of Iran's rising position as a
regional power and its challenge to the American and
Israeli status quo. The real reason his visit is
controversial is that the American right has decided
the United States needs to go to war against Iran.
Ahmadinejad is therefore being configured as an enemy
head of state.



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



-- 
Macdonald Stainsby
Coordinator, http://oilsandstruth.org
--
moderated radical news & discussion list:
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green

In the contradiction lies the hope.
    --Bertholt Brecht.