Post by Bozur on Nov 9, 2008 0:40:55 GMT -5
Iran’s Leader Criticizes U.S. Policies Around World
By NEIL MACFARQUHAR
Published: September 25, 2008
UNITED NATIONS — President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, reviewing the various conflicts smoldering in his neighborhood, said Thursday that NATO forces paid insufficient attention to humanitarian problems in Afghanistan, that Iraqi forces should be given more responsibility for security and that he was “unhappy” with the situation in Georgia.
He agreed that Iraq was notably less violent than in the past, but attributed that not to American military strategy but instead to handoffs to the Iraqi military. “In every sector where security has been handed over to the Iraqi government, things are calmer and managed better,” Mr. Ahmadinejad, in New York for the annual opening of the General Assembly at the United Nations, said in an interview with The New York Times. He said this gradual transfer of power was one of the few areas in which Tehran agreed with American policy.
Seated before an Iranian flag in a small conference room in a Midtown hotel, the president held forth at length on American policy and history. The subtext running through many of his remarks was that he understood the hearts of the American people, who would express their natural affinity with the Islamic Republic if only Washington did not get in the way.
Growing world problems like war and poverty are the result of American mismanagement of global affairs, he said at one point.
“We don’t want all this, we like to have friendships,” he said. “I really don’t think that the American people like what they see either. If American people had the chance to truly express themselves they would definitely express opposition to how the world has been run.”
He was distinctly less forthcoming about domestic problems in Iran. At one point when he started to grow testy while being pressed about economic problems under his administration, an aide sitting at his elbow advised him in Persian to stay calm while answering.
On Afghanistan, Mr. Ahmadinejad said he thought that the United States and NATO forces there were putting too much emphasis on a military solution in a country that they did not really understand.
“They simply think that all problems can be fixed with military might and bombs and guns,” Mr. Ahmadinejad said. “In Afghanistan, with the level of human calamity, a humanitarian approach must be adopted. Otherwise, extremism will be on the rise again, and next time NATO won’t be able to stop it.”
Iran had its own problems with the former Taliban government, which was especially abusive toward the Shiite minority in Afghanistan, and Iran cooperated with the United States in speeding its overthrow. At the time, it was seen as a possible route for détente between Washington and Tehran, whose ties soured with the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
But that cooperation basically stopped in January 2002, when President Bush named Iran as one of three nations in an “axis of evil,” along with Iraq and North Korea.
Mr. Ahmadinejad said Iran would be much more guarded about similar help in the future. “We helped in Afghanistan; the result of that assistance was Mr. Bush directly threatening us with a military attack,” the president said. “For six years he has been engaged in similar talk against us. Next time around, we need to take more measured steps, more firm steps.”
In speaking with a small group of reporters, editors and columnists from The Times for nearly an hour, Mr. Ahmadinejad echoed some of the themes he has voiced in other public statements during his visit this year. This included suggesting that the next American president should mend relations with Iran and pursue a less interventionist foreign policy.
Relations with the United States have long bedeviled the Islamic Republic. Confronting Washington is a cornerstone of the 1979 revolution for its hard-core supporters, but there is some sense in Iran that the public longs to shake off the country’s pariah status in the West. Mr. Ahmadinejad appeared to be trying to satisfy both constituencies by saying that the door was open but that the Iranian government was in no rush to walk through it.
As in most interviews, while Mr. Ahmadinejad was free with advice about what the United States should do, he was reluctant to answer questions about domestic matters in Iran. He often tried to deflect them by pointing out that the United States had problems of its own, like the proposed $700 billion bailout of Wall Street.
When he suggested that the United States fix its problems rather than meddle in other countries, he was asked whether many Iranians felt the same way about the Iranian government’s financing groups like Hezbollah and Hamas rather than focusing on the country’s domestic economic problems.
“Iranians know best how to fix their problems,” he said.
The president, elected in 2005 on a platform of improving the financial lot of average Iranians, did concede that Iran faced economic difficulties that he planned to address before seeking re-election next June.
He said that his government was trying to curb inflation — which outside analysts put around 25 percent — and he asserted that unemployment figures were improving. Officially, unemployment is around 11 percent, but some estimates put it as high as 40 percent among Iranians under 30. “Of course, because of the high population growth in Iran, at a certain juncture of time, employment generation became a challenge,” Mr. Ahmadinejad said.
Despite being one of the world’s largest oil producers, Iran imports some 40 percent of its gasoline needs; an aborted attempt to lift heavy subsidies in 2007 led to riots. Mr. Ahmadinejad said that gasoline consumption in Iran was especially high because it was so cheap, but that his government planned to build seven new refineries to meet that demand.
He appeared confident that he would overcome the problems with a new economic policy, although he did not volunteer any details. “Let’s wait a few months and see how people will vote in the elections,” he said.
On other issues, he blamed the United States and its allies for this summer’s war in Georgia, saying they pushed Georgia’s government to provoke Russia. But he said he did not support the Russian attack. “We are unhappy with what happened there,” he said.
He gave no ground on the continuing conflict over Iran’s nuclear program, repeating that the United States could not tell Iran to stop enriching uranium and that Iran had no intention of developing nuclear weapons. He dismissed criticism of Iran’s human rights record on issues like executing juvenile prisoners or jailing political prisoners, although he conceded that drug smuggling cases were an exception to the law stipulating that no one under 18 faced capital punishment.
Mr. Ahmadinejad invariably courts controversy and the spotlight every year by predicting the demise of Israel from the podium of the General Assembly, although this year he ratcheted down his threats a notch by suggesting it would collapse of its own perfidy rather than be wiped out. He was once again widely criticized for suggesting that Jews — he used the word Zionists — controlled the political and economic policies of the West.
Asked why he had such an issue with the Jews, Mr. Ahmadinejad denied that his hostility was influenced by religion, and noted that Iran allowed its Jewish population to have a representative in Parliament.
“The question is really over Zionism; Zionism is not Judaism, it is a political party,” he said, responsible for “crimes,” death and destruction in the Middle East.
At a separate breakfast meeting with another group of journalists, including one from The New York Times, Mr. Ahmadinejad was asked how his words about the end of the American empire and the demise of Israel squared with his expressed desire for better relations.
He compared his statements to a traffic sign warning motorists of a cliff ahead, again suggesting he understood best the interests of all concerned. “We are informing them,” he said. “It’s really helping them.”
Azadeh Ensha contributed reporting.
www.nytimes.com/