Iran president in NY

[CRe]

Should he be allowed (which he is) or not? What are your thoughts on it?

[LiDDiS]

Why shouldn't he be allowed? Not allowing him to speak would be quite hypocritical...

[ThunderJam]

I listened to a 20 minute broadcast about this on the radio on the way to school yesterday. I pretty much agreed with the conclusions they came to:

 

1) Legally he has every right to be here, and lay a wreath at ground zero. This is because while visiting with the UN he is permitted to visit a 25 mile radius from that location, which includes ground zero. Legally we have no reason to detain him from moving freely within in area.

 

2) This doesn't mean we should be happy or inviting or want to let him lay his stupid wreath. First thought we should just deny him the security personel to accompany him to ground zero so that he couldn't make the trip there as it would be unsafe.

 

3) However if we don't give him security to move around, what if got shot? That would probly be worse than letting him lay his stupid wreath. Imagine, he rants in Iran about how bad we are, comes here on a "peaceful visit" and then gets shot. America would be in hot !@#$%^&* then...

Edited September 24, 2007 by ThunderJam

[Aileron]

Well, there are several aspects. World leaders are as a policy to be given access to the UN. However, Ahmenijad is also speaking at a few universities and wished to be given access to Ground Zero.

 

I would agree that it would be fair to let him go to the UN. To the rest of it I would just tell him to go f___ himself. We don't have to like him.

 

He's denied the Holocaust happened. He thinks 9/11 was caused by a cruise missile. Were this some idiotic college student majoring in compairative literature who's experience in covert operations consists of watching way too many episodes of the X-files, that would be one thing, but this guy is supposedly a world leader. He has access to Iran's intelligence network, and is in the position where one shouldn't say things without proof.

 

Since Ahmenijad has been in charge, Iran has been smuggling weapons to aid the Shi'ites tribes in Iraq. Now, IEDs have armor-piercing shrapnel, and their rocket-propelled grenades have been replaced with surface-to-air missiles.

 

Iran has built facilities that would make it easier for them to develop a nuclear weapon, not a 'dirty bomb', but the real deal. As the number 2 oil exporting nation, they claim those facilities are there to produce energy. Most of these things are underground underneath suburban neighborhoods, unlike our power plants which are deliberately placed in the boonies.

 

He's stated in his domestic addresses that his goal is to cause the return of the Mahdi, the "hidden imam" of Shi'ite Islam who in the 8th century fell down a well. According to the belief's of Ahmenijad's mentor, the Mahdi will return after a sufficient global apocalypse has happened. His beliefs might very well be that he is trying to bring about the return of this Mahdi by killing a lot of people, probably with a nuclear device, and that's according to people who are far more experienced in such matters than I.

[JDS]

yikes

[SeVeR]

Iran is developing nuclear power. There is no evidence to suggest they are building (or even desire) a nuclear weapon. Iran is co-operating with the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency. The US has tried to incriminate Iran with false reports: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5346524.stm

He is en!@#$%^&*led to his views on the Holocaust, and those views don't present a danger to anyone.

Everything else on your list is utter speculation.

I commend the fact that he tours university's and gives lectures. I commend the fact that he offered President Bush direct talks, which Bush refused.

[Dav]

whist iran may not be thew most agreeable nation as ail seems to state i think you listen to your news a bit too much.

 

The problem is the west generally dislikes iran and so the news will tailor its reports to make iran sound as evil as possible. All i seem to hear from the news is that iran IS building a nuke right now, they are !@#$%^&*isting in the killing of troops and they want us all dead with immediate effect. In reality i doubt its that extreme.

 

I see a repeat of iraq here, according to the news they DID have WMDs, could blast us off the face of the earth in 45 minutes and of course there is no mistake... kinda a little of the real situation.

[Aileron]

Sever, you got it backwards. I am a person with an opinion, which I can choose to support with cir!@#$%^&*stancial evidence or not. I'm speaking on an internet forum no more than a hundred people know about. Ahmenijad is the leader of a country. He doesn't speak for his opinion, but the path which Iran is going to follow. He's given access to the UN because he is supposedly a world leader. He is making public accusations that the US government secretly caused 9/11. Amenijhad certainly has no proof of ~those~ accusations, and he is speaking at the United Nations General !@#$%^&*embly!!!! He's not en!@#$%^&*led to make such comments because he is a world leader, and world leaders are people who should have standards.

 

Ahmenijad wanted to talk to Bush about converting to Islam. Bush isn't interested.

 

Actually, I'm getting this from books rather than the media. Granted, the books are right wing, but this guy did choose a good spread of people to interview, and wrote down his complete record of them. He interviewed a general, a CIA guy, and a college professor, and all three agreed upon the fact that Ahmenijad is a fanatic.

[NBVegita]

Why the denied him the right to place his wreath is because, conveniently enough, the place he wished to place his wreath is surrounded by construction at the moment. Such that no tourist/citizens are allowed in there at this time. They caught a break there.

 

And also sever, that article is over a year old. After that article, as we had gotten into a long debate about, there were issues with the february 07 IAEA report, and Irans cooperation and transparency. Now I do not know the current congruency of the report/cooperation/transparency, but I was just defending that since your article, there was direct evidence of Iran refusing and avoiding aspects that the IAEA had requested to make the scope of the Iranian nuclear project clear.

 

And no one can deny that Iran has been, and is even today training/supplying iraqi insurgents. We've confiscated Iranian weapons, and Iranian officials in Iraq.

 

Ahmenijad is a fanatic in the same way as Hitler. (Don't take that to assume that I'm stating he will create a second, well first in his mind, holocaust). He is brazenly intelligent, charismatic, powerful and dangerous. He tried to play to the naive by making foolish comments like "we have no homosexuals", but that is just strategy. Strictly because of the power, intelligence and charisma of this man, he is a bigger danger to the "west and europe" than Russia is.

 

And as Ail said, the problem with his diplomatic outreach to the president was that he had planned to discuss the dissolving of one of our allies all the while he is supporting the enemies of our country in an ongoing war.

 

On a positive note, no matter if it is simply a ploy or not, Iran has closed its borders at six spots with Iraq where there are strong masses of insurgents.

 

I feel if Iran truly believes in a powerful Iraq, they should assist the "west and europe" in stabalizing Iraq. That would create, albeit strenuous, positive diplomatic terms between countries that have not had diplomatic talks in over a decade. This would also assist in removing western powers from the middle east. It is a no lose situation for Iran, as they would be seen as the country who "saved" Iraq and sent the U.S. troops home.

[Aileron]

Well, what happened is that on July 11th, the IAEA came to their conclusions. They met with Iran's chief diplomat, and told him they were going to refer Iran to the UN Security Council. Also, the G8 Summit was right around the corner.

 

After the meeting, the Iranian diplomat, instead of going back to Iran, flew to Damascus, where he met with some Syrian officials as well as certain representatives from a certain political party based in Lebanon.

 

In something completely unrelated, the next day Hezbollah spontaneously decided to conduct a raid against Israel, kidnapping two soldiers and starting the recent conflict between Israel and Lebanon.

 

Due to that completely unrelated event, the UN and G8 were paying attention to Lebanon and sort of put concerns over Iran's nuclear program on the back burner.

 

 

Now ofcourse, if any of this implied that after hearing the hammer was about to drop on their arse, that Iran's amb!@#$%^&*ador flew to Syria to give his Hezbollah lackies orders to provide a distraction, you're absolutely wrong. Iran's a peace-loving nation! They don't have ties to terrorists! Those nuclear reactors are for electricity! LALALALALA

 

 

And to liberals: I've read Ahmenijad's letters. My conclusion is that Ahmenijad is trying to mimic liberalism. In one of them he accuses the US of being a police state where "Private phones are tapped, suspects are arbitrarily arrested, sometimes beaten in the streets, or even shot to death." (November 29, 2006) I for one can credit Iranian intelligence on this one. I live in the US and I haven't noticed this behavior going on, but apparently Ahmenijad has sniffed it out from the other side of the world!

 

Look, he doesn't believe this stuff. He believes in his Mahdi - his writings make that clear. What he is doing is taking things our broadcasts on television and the internet, he has identified the type of people who oppose Bush, and he is simply reiterating their viewpoint. He probably doesn't believe that 9/11 was a conspiracy; he is using that to try to turn over some liberals. He doesn't belive that Iraq never had chemical weapons - it would be hard given that those chemical weapons had wiped out several million Iranians during the Iraq-Iran war. However, he is willing to make those statements in order to appeal to liberals.

 

Why? Because he wants us to pull out of Iraq after setting up a vote but before installing basic freedoms. Ahmenijad does not think in terms of national boundaries but religious boundaries, and Iraq is % Shi'ite. If Iraq were to become a majority-dictatorship, it would be a defacto part of Ahmenijad's empire.