Main stories: Ahmadinejad thumbs his nose at the West

What happened

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad this week delivered a defiant address to the United Nations, saying that Iran would not abandon its nuclear program despite sanctions imposed by “arrogant powers” on the U.N. Security Council. During a rambling, 40-minute speech, the Iranian leader declared that the controversy over his country’s nuclear program was “closed,” and that the development of nuclear power plants was now a “technical” matter for the International Atomic Energy Agency to monitor but not stop. Ahmadinejad also took a thinly veiled swipe at the U.S., saying that human rights were being systematically violated by “certain powers, especially by those who pretend to be their exclusive advocates.” President Bush, who had addressed the U.N. on human rights hours earlier, walked out before Ahmadinejad’s speech.

The day before his U.N. appearance, Ahmadinejad addressed 600 students and dignitaries at New York’s Columbia University, following a hostile introduction by university president Lee Bollinger, who called the Iranian president a “petty and cruel dictator.” Ahmadinejad drew derisive laughter for asserting that there were no homosexuals in Iran. He also claimed that the Nazi genocide of 6 million Jews was merely a theory requiring further study, and called for a Palestinian referendum to determine the future of the “Palestinian nation.”

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What the editorials said

What purpose was served by this “bizarre and dishonest performance”? asked National Review Online. At Columbia, Ahmadinejad lied about his country’s support of terrorism, its supposed free press, and the status of Iranian women. But his most brazen lie was his statement that Iran’s nuclear research was for peaceful purposes only. Yet “many of the students in the audience didn’t seem to mind being lied to,” taking offense only when he denied that there were any homosexuals in Iran. We already knew Ahmadinejad was a liar and a fanatic, which “raises the question of why Bollinger invited such a man to his university in the first place.”

Simple—so we could see firsthand what we’re dealing with in Tehran, said the Los Angeles Times. All this talk about Columbia giving Iran’s president “a platform” presumes that there was some danger he might convince people that Islamic fanatics are nice guys and that the Holocaust never happened. But Columbia exposed Ahmadinejad’s absurdity by allowing him to rant, demonstrating that “the best way to discredit a tyrant is to let him do it himself, in his own poisonous words.”

What the columnists said

Ahmadinejad played his New York audience for fools, said Anne Applebaum in Slate.com. By appearing at Columbia over the objections of politicians and pundits, Ahmadinejad succeeded in styling himself as an advocate of free speech and vigorous intellectual debate. “The university would have done better simply to ignore him.” Better yet, it “should have presented Ahmadinejad with an Iranian dissident or human-rights activist to debate.”

There’s one consolation: At least New York officials denied the provocateur his bizarre request to lay a wreath at ground zero, said Amir Taheri in the New York Post. Ahmadinejad had hoped that little bit of theater would “soften his image, for he knows that his rabid anti-Americanism has antagonized Iranians—a majority of whom are well-disposed to the West.” Ahmadinejad did succeed in his larger mission, though: to portray himself back home as “an international statesman capable of playing a global role,” perhaps as the leader of the world’s outlaw nations.

Ahmadinejad isn’t the only one with a hidden agenda, said Juan Cole in Salon.com. The Bush administration secretly welcomed the opportunity to demonize the Iranian president and lay the groundwork for war with Iran. The White House fears “Iran’s rising position as a regional power and its challenge to the American and Israeli status quo.” It believes war is necessary to thwart Iran’s ambitions, and so Ahmadinejad is “being configured as an enemy head of state.” Hence all the hysteria that accompanied his visit.

What next?

The U.S. is pressing the other permanent members of the Security Council—France, Britain, Russia, and China—to enact “sterner measures” against Iran for continuing to enrich uranium in defiance of U.N. sanctions, said Warren Hoge in The New York Times. The U.S. wants Western banks to stop lending to the Iranian regime, “making it difficult for the country to invest in new oil facilities or other infrastructure.” China and Russia are urging smaller, more symbolic sanctions, and ultimately, Western nations may proceed without them.