More articles by Brian JosepherAhmadinejad: The Exclusive E-mail Interview, part IIAhmadinejad: The Exclusive E-mail Interview, part II
In this final segment of a five-part series I take a closer look at the tragedy of American-Iranian relations. Early last autumn I began to spend some time on the website of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, http://www.president.ir/eng/. In early October I pressed the “contact” key on the website. I don’t exactly remember the first time that I received a response from President Ahmadinejad, or whomever manages his website. I do remember my exact response, a very surprising “What is this?”
From those words a correspondence began. The correspondence turned into a series of interviews, all via e-mail. Without the consent of President Ahmadinejad, or whomever manages his website, I have decided to go public with that correspondence. This is the second part of that interview. (To read the first part of my interview with President Ahmadinejad, or my interview with Iranian expert Professor Bill James, or the first part of this series (America’s first look at Khomeini), please click on the link “More articles by Brian Josepher” above. You will see the articles to the right.)
The first part of my e-mail interview with President Ahmadinejad concluded with the martyrdom of Iranian youth during the Iran-Iraq War. Young soldiers walked through minefields as the way of detecting mines laid by Iraqi armed forces. That image brought another subject to mind.
Q: Mr. President, unlike the Palestinian Intifada, or al-Qaeda in Iraq, we have not seen Iranian suicide bombers in Iraq or Lebanon or Israel for that matter. What does that say?
Ahmadinejad: We have a special unit of martyrdom seekers in the Revolutionary Guard. The unit consists of 52,000 trained volunteers ready to attack American and British targets if America should attack Iran.
Q: Yes, I’ve heard that. I’ve also read that your unit of “martyrdom seekers,” as you call suicide bombers, was established for defense. Does that mean the defense of Iran or the defense of Islam? In other words, would Iran send its martyrdom seekers to Palestine to support Hamas?
Ahmadinejad: We are opposed to oppression. We support whoever is victimized and oppressed. And that includes your people, Mr. Josepher. I am very saddened to hear that 1 percent of your total population is in prison and 45 million Americans don’t have health care coverage. That is very sad to hear.
Q: Is Iran directly supporting Hezbollah?
Ahmadinejad: Hezbollah is a popular organization in Lebanon and they are defending their land. They are defending their own houses. According to the charter of the United Nations, every person has the right to defend his house.
Q: Mr. President, in the February 25, 2008 edition of Newsweek, there’s an article on the death of Imad Mugniyah, the driving force behind Hezbollah for decades. According to the article, you went to Damascus in early 2006 for a meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, Mugniyah, and Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah. The authors of the article insinuate that it was you who suggested kidnapping Israeli soldiers along Lebanon’s southern border. That led to the 34-day war in Lebanon. Do you have any comment on that?
Ahmadinejad: It is no secret that Syria and Iran enjoy a working relationship. I would characterize Syrian-Iranian relations as amicable, excellent and extremely deep. As for Hezbollah, their victory over Israel proved the weakness of the Zionist entity. The Great Oppressor is providing state-of-the-art military hardware to the Zionists. And they are throwing their full support behind Israel. We believe that this threatens the future of all peoples, including the American and European peoples. So we are asking why the American government is blindly supporting this murderous regime.
Q: The Great Oppressor? I assume you mean America. Is that your version of Ayatollah Khomeini’s Great Satan?
Ahmadinejad: Let me turn the tables and ask you a question, Mr. Josepher. If an atrocity was committed in Germany or Europe for that matter, why should the Palestinians answer for that? They had no role to play in the Holocaust. Why on the pretext of the Holocaust have they occupied Palestine? Millions of people have been made refugees. Thousands of people to date have been killed. Thousands of people have been put in prison. At this very moment, a great war is raging because of the Holocaust. Do you see what the Holocaust has given us?
Q: Mr. President, why are you bringing up the Holocaust at this juncture? We’ve spent a good deal of time on it earlier.
Ahmadinejad: I’m not the one bringing up the Holocaust. I am reacting to the Zionist entity. Iran takes a defensive position.
Q: I have to tell you, as a left-leaning American Jew who deeply questions the policies of Israel, your words incite me to go and join the IDF. Do you realize the power you’re giving Israel in your Israel-hatred?
(President Ahmadinejad, or whomever manages his website, chose not to answer this question. I waited three days but a response never came. I therefore asked the question in another way.)
Q: Mr. President, if a traveler arrives in Iran with a visa stamp from Israel on his passport, Iranian customs officers kick him out of the country. Israelis of course are not welcome in your country but neither are Australians or the Swiss or Brazilians if they carry an Israeli visa. Why?
Ahmadinejad: The Zionist entity uses laser-guided bombs offered by the Great Oppressor to target the shelters of defenseless children and women. The Zionist entity is a depraved, immoral society. I offer as evidence the overall IQ of Israel. Ninety.
Q: Yes, you’ve said that before. While we’re talking about that part of the world, a recent poll in Egypt identified you as the third most popular leader, behind Hassan Nasrallah and Khaled Meshaal. How do you interpret that?
Ahmadinejad: Muslims throughout the Middle East are listening to Iran and buying into our Shia revolutionary arc.
Q: “Shia revolutionary arc,” is that your terminology for exporting your belief system? Your hero, Ayatollah Khomeini, tried and failed in that endeavor. What makes you think that you can succeed?
Ahmadinejad: In Egypt, with a total population of 80 million and a Shia population of less than 700,000 – or under .05 percent of the Muslim population – I am the third most popular man.
Q: You are more popular in Egypt than you are in Iran.
Ahmadinejad: I won the election of 2005 by more than 7 million votes.
Q: Mr. President, in a recent poll conducted by Tehran One, the government-run television network, 56 percent of those who voted for you in 2005 declared that they would not vote for you gain.
(According to America’s foremost Iranian expert, Professor Bill James, the polls are meaningless. “His popularity doesn’t really matter,” James told me. “There’s no such thing as free elections. In Iran, there are two powerhouses that determine elections. The first is the Vali-e faqih, or the Supreme Leader. Now, Ali Khamenei is no Ruhollah Khomeini but nobody doubts his power. The second is the Revolutionary Guard. And guess what? Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a founding member. He joined the guard in the early 1980s. He has their total support. And why wouldn’t he? When he came to power, Ahmadinejad appointed Revolutionary Guard commanders to fill his cabinet and to run the intelligence agencies. The government of Iran today is basically an offshoot of the Revolutionary Guard.”)
Ahmadinejad: I do not trust polls. I put my faith in the people of Iran.
Q: And in God.
Ahmadinejad: Always in God.
Q: Well, speaking of the people of Iran, let’s talk about the internal conditions there. Let’s start with the election of 2005. There seemed to be major irregularities in the general election. Mostafa Moin, for instance, appeared in the days leading up to the election to be the favorite, along with Rafsanjani. And yet Moin came in fifth, with some 2 million votes compared to your 5.7 million. How do you explain that?
Ahmadinejad: By 2005 Iranians had grown tired of President Khatami’s failed reform strategies. Mostafa Moin ran on the legacy of Khatami’s policies. He never was a favorite in the election. If he was, there’s your major irregularity.
Q: And then there was the case of Mehdi Karrubi. When he went to bed on the night of the election he led you by 1 million votes and looked certain to get into the runoff with Rafsanjani. When he awoke three hours later, you’d leapfrogged him, outdistancing him by 1.7 million votes. How do you explain that giant leap?
Ahmadinejad: Ayatollah Karrubi tried to bribe the populace. He promised a handout of $62 to every adult if elected. The people saw through his campaign pledge. Iranians are a very ethical people.
Q: You campaigned on the promise of setting up a pure Islamic government, a government of God. Did your victory in the election suggest that the people of Iran favor theocracy over democracy?
Ahmadinejad: Democracy is not a value for us. Justice is a value, and fairness, but not democracy. We didn’t raise a revolution to institute democracy. The people of Iran recognize that democracies wish to solve everything with bombs. The time of the bomb is in the past. It’s behind us. Today is the era of thoughts, dialogue, cultural exchanges and economic interdependencies.
Q: Let’s talk about economic interdependencies. Abbas Milani, the director of the Iranian Studies Program at Stanford University, called your economic policies, “disastrous.” I’m quoting now from Professor Milani’s article in the Boston Review. “In spite of record earnings from oil, there has been massive capital flight, a shrinking private sector, a banking crisis, and an increase in oil dependency and subsidies paid by the regime…”
Ahmadinejad: If I may interrupt, Mr. Josepher, that sounds like the United States of America.
Q: Cute, and true. But if you will allow me to continue, “The oil sector itself is facing serious structural problems due to decaying infrastructure. If trends persist, and Iran cannot attract an estimated six hundred billion dollars of investment in the oil industry, Iranian oil exports may collapse completely within a decade. With unemployment in double digits, the regime is now facing stagflation – high inflation rates and rapidly rising prices – as well as a depression-like recession.” How do you respond to that?
Ahmadinejad: Mr. Josepher, when Mr. Milani talks about trends, allow me to quote some of my own. In 2003 Iran’s oil export revenues soared to $24 billion. In 2004, the oil revenues reached $32 billion. In 2005, $47 billion. Oil just reached $113 dollars a barrel. Do you see the upward trajectory?
Q: Mr. President, you just fired your economic minister. You offered no explanation. I’m quoting now from an Iranian newspaper, the moderate Kargozaran, “People should know that Mr. Danesh Jaffari [the economic minister] is being sacked because of the skyrocketing inflation or because of his opposition to the president’s economic policies.” Which is it?
Ahmadinejad: You are showing your prejudices, Mr. Josepher, and your ignorance. Kargozaran is allied with Rafsanjani. Do not believe what you read. As a fervent reader of my website, you should know that I posted my reasons for firing Mr. Jaffari. My Cabinet choices reflect my policies for progress and development.
Q: Okay, let’s talk about progress and development. According to the World Bank, Iran’s energy subsidies are now the highest in the world. There are government controls on the price of nearly every food staple, from bread to rice to meat. Gasoline costs around ten cents per liter. The official rate of inflation is 18 percent, although that’s a governmental statistic. Economists believe it to be in the 25 percent range. Unemployment hovers around 18 percent, another governmental statistic. Among the young, the rate of unemployment is 30 percent. And Iran has a huge youth movement. During the decade of the 1980s the population rose by 45 percent. Seventy percent of the total population is under thirty years of age. Don’t you need a huge increase of foreign investments? And shouldn’t you be pursuing policies that end the UN-mandated sanctions? I don’t think Iran as a totalitarian state will end the sanctions.
Ahmadinejad: Iran’s future rests with the East. We have implemented our Asia Look. In the near future we will sign multi-billion-dollar oil and gas agreements with both China and India. We will connect Iran to India, and eventually to China, with a new pipeline. We will share our nuclear technology with our friends to the east, and they will share their technology with us. Your gloom and doom statistics make you sound like an operative from the decadent West.
Q: But it must concern you, Mr. President, that the population of Iran has an aging clerical class and a huge youth generation. That’s a combination ripe for a revolution.
Ahmadinejad: As a youth, Mr. Josepher, I studied the Qur’an. I put my faith in Khomeini. I’m confidant that our youth will do the same. If they do, we will see tomorrow what kind of heaven this place becomes.
Q: Yes, you’ve stated that before. Your youth, if you believe the UN World Drug Report of 2005, are addicted to opium. Nearly three percent of the population, according to the report. No other country rises above the 2 percent mark.
Ahmadinejad: What you must understand is that Iran shares a 750-mile border with Afghanistan and some 93 percent of the world’s opium is grown in Afghanistan. Over the past 15 years, opium production in Afghanistan has become an industrialized industry feeding Western markets. As a result of passing trade, the entire region has become a consumer. Pakistan has the same problem that Iran does. So does Turkmenistan and Tajikistan.
Q: You make it sound like the fault lies with the West.
Ahmadinejad: The fault lies with the direction of commerce. The imperialism of the West yields the penury of the East. Addiction and economic crisis is a functionality of American dominion. To reiterate, Iran’s future rests with the East.
Q: Pardis Mahdavi, an anthropologist at Pomona College, conducted a study of married women in the northern, affluent neighborhoods of Tehran. According to his study, nearly half of those who responded admitted to extra-marital affairs. How do you respond to that?
Ahmadinejad: The researcher finds what the researcher wants to find.
Q: Perhaps. But when you consider the possible punishment for adultery, stoning to death for women, the very act sounds like a sexual revolution to me.
Ahmadinejad: The journalist writes what the journalist wants to write.
Q: Are you denying that adultery takes place?
Ahmadinejad: Sharia law requires that married people found of adultery be executed by stoning.
Q: Well there are different interpretations of Sharia law. They don’t stone women to death in Lebanon.
(President Ahmadinejad, or whomever manages his website, chose not to respond. I therefore asked the question in another way.)
Q: I recently read a report, Mr. President. Two women in your country were accused of adultery, tried and sentenced to death by stoning. The punishment was carried out the next day. As one human being to another is there no room for compromise?
Ahmadinejad: Do you know what the term Sharia means?
Q: I do not.
Ahmadinejad: It means “the path to the watering hole.” We are following the path.
Q: There are many paths to the same watering hole.
Ahmadinejad: Typically, Mr. Josepher, there is one best path. The shortest, most direct route. I should know. I was trained as a traffic engineer.
Q: Okay, let’s talk about the traffic in Tehran, and the greater issue of the environment. I am quoting statistics now from the Green Party of Iran. This is what Tehran bumps into the atmosphere per day: 3,000 tons of carbon monoxide, 450 tons of hydrocarbons, 30 tons of sulfur and two tons of lead. Residents of Tehran take in nearly 8 times the amount of carbon monoxide considered safe. Sixty to seventy percent of the pollution is caused by motor vehicles and yet the cars on your streets are not equipped with catalytic converters. This seems like a simple solution. Why aren’t they?
Ahmadinejad: Trust me, Mr. Josepher, when I say that as a traffic engineer, this is not such a problem with simple solutions. The fact is, the pollution in Tehran is a cultural, social and economic problem. Without taking into account any one of these aspects, any proposed solution would be impractical and inefficient.
I would also remind you that the Islamic Republic of Iran joined the Kyoto protocol. We’re still waiting for the United States to do the same. It expires in 2012, you know?
Q: I know. The United States may sign the Kyoto protocol in 2009, when a new president moves into the White House. And Kyoto needs to be totally rewritten anyway. I mean, I’m not a fan of the Bush environmental policy but the U.S. was right not to sign Kyoto. It doesn’t go nearly far enough. At any rate, Mr. President, with this being an election year in America, who would be better for Iran, a Republican president or a Democrat?
Ahmadinejad: Iran does not interfere with the internal operation of other countries. The Great Oppressor should learn from us.
Q: Of course, but you must have an opinion. Senator Obama calls for a dialogue with Iran. Senator McCain pushes the Bush agenda. Wouldn’t Obama be better for Iran?
Ahmadinejad: The rhetoric of campaigns does not concern me. If the next president of the United States wishes to have relations with us, we would be interested. This is the principle of my foreign policy.
Q: When was the last time the leaders of Iran and the U.S. had direct conversations?
Ahmadinejad: Twenty-eight, 29 years ago.
Q: What would it take to begin a new era in Iranian-American relations?
Ahmadinejad: Conducive conditions. Look at the makeup of the American administration, the behavior of the American administration. See how they talk down to my nation. They want to build an empire. They don’t want to live side by side in peace with other nations.
Q: Within your own country, Mr. President, you do not live side by side in peace with other groups. I would not want to be a gay man in your nation.
Ahmadinejad: In Iran we don’t have homosexuals like you in your country. We don’t have this phenomenon.
Q: That sounds familiar. Didn’t you say the exact same thing at Columbia University? I don’t expect an answer. Moving on, I would not want to be part of the Baha’i faith.
Ahmadinejad: When we talk about divine religion, the Jewish groups, their prophet was the Holy Moses and the Christians Christ and the Muslims, the prophet of Islam. Can you tell me who the divine prophet of the religion you mentioned appeared and was revealed to when exactly? Did he have a name? Good luck.
Q: Is it heretical to actually speak the name Baha’i? And why has every leader from the Shah to Khomeini to Rafsanjani to you tried to eradicate this group? Why do you believe in genocide? I don’t expect an answer. Moving on, as a Jew, Mr. President, would you welcome me to Iran?
Ahmadinejad: Mr. Josepher, in your readings you must have come across the historian Herodotus and The Persian Wars. According to Herodotus, there was a peaceful despot named Cyrus the Great. When Cyrus conquered Babylonia, he did not put the Babylonians to the sword and he freed the Jewish population. Many of those Jews moved to Persia to begin a very strong, very integral relationship with us. Today, Mr. Josepher, that relationship continues. There are thousands of Jews in Iran. They have total freedom of religion. For instance, doesn’t your Passover begin soon? The Jews of Iran celebrate with sweet wine.
Q: You make it sound like you are the Cyrus of the 21st century. You talk as if you welcome everyone to your Seder table. It should be mentioned that since the Khomeini revolution the Jewish population in Iran has dwindled from 150,000 to under 25,000. It should also be mentioned that in 2006 your government reiterated the death-sentence fatwa against Salman Rushdie. Why?
Ahmadinejad: “It is incumbent on every Muslim to employ everything he has, his life and his wealth, to send Rushdie to hell.” These are the words of Ayatollah Khomeini when he pronounced the fatwa. Only the original author of a fatwa can retract it. Khomeini never did.
Q: You would celebrate the assassination of Salman Rushdie?
Ahmadinejad: He is a heretic.
Q: He is a writer of fiction. He is an entertainer. In our “era of thoughts, dialogue, cultural exchanges and economic interdependencies” – your words, Mr. President – we should be able to recognize the difference between fiction and heresy.
Unfortunately we are running out of time and space. I want to end this interview by going back to the personal. I have to tell you, my brother-in-law rhymes your name with “I’m-a-dinner-jacket.” He asks why you seem to always dress in a Members Only jacket. Mr. President, do you consider yourself a vain man?
Ahmadinejad: Sometimes appearances – yes, you have to look your best…
Q: Can I just interrupt you for a moment? According to Iranian expert Bill James, Ayatollah Khomeini spent a part of every morning grooming his beard. Ruhollah Khomeini was a Paco Rabanne man.
Ahmadinejad: Yes, this is why I comb my hair.
Q: Mr. President, I want to thank you for your time and candor. I hope we can do this again.
Ahmadinejad: To paraphrase a Jewish saying from Passover, Next year in Tehran.
Q: Yes. Next year in Tehran.
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