Post by Charles Martel on Jan 28, 2009 17:43:06 GMT
Analysis: Ahmadinejad on the attack
Nobody was expecting a long and warm honeymoon but the vitriol in President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's remarks to the new US administration was remarkable.
President Barack Obama, in his first foreign interview earlier this week, offered what he called the hand of friendship if Iran "unclenched its fist"
In response, Mr Ahmadinejad jumped back in the boxing ring and resumed a verbal volley of punches.
First he wished former US President George W Bush on his way: "God willing, he has gone to hell."
Then Mr Ahmadinejad laid before his audience the ever-growing list of grievances Iran holds against the US:
American support for the coup that unseated a democratically elected Iranian government in 1953
American backing for Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war
Support for the "Zionist regime" [Israel]
Launching the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq under the pretext of 9/11 - an incident as questionable as the Holocaust, he suggested.
Americans had kept Iran away from scientific progress and injected the country with poverty, ignorance and illiteracy, he said. They had turned their embassy in Tehran into a "nest of spies", Mr Ahmadinejad continued.
More at: BBC
Ahmadinejad is obviously ignorant of what Obama had already said in his inauguration speech, which is not surprising:
Nobody was expecting a long and warm honeymoon but the vitriol in President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's remarks to the new US administration was remarkable.
President Barack Obama, in his first foreign interview earlier this week, offered what he called the hand of friendship if Iran "unclenched its fist"
In response, Mr Ahmadinejad jumped back in the boxing ring and resumed a verbal volley of punches.
First he wished former US President George W Bush on his way: "God willing, he has gone to hell."
Then Mr Ahmadinejad laid before his audience the ever-growing list of grievances Iran holds against the US:
American support for the coup that unseated a democratically elected Iranian government in 1953
American backing for Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war
Support for the "Zionist regime" [Israel]
Launching the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq under the pretext of 9/11 - an incident as questionable as the Holocaust, he suggested.
Americans had kept Iran away from scientific progress and injected the country with poverty, ignorance and illiteracy, he said. They had turned their embassy in Tehran into a "nest of spies", Mr Ahmadinejad continued.
More at: BBC
Ahmadinejad is obviously ignorant of what Obama had already said in his inauguration speech, which is not surprising:
To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict or blame their society's ills on the West, know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy.
To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.
New York Times
To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.
New York Times
