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Saturday, October 29, 2005
EDITORIAL: Mr Ahmadinejad's unfortunate remark is icing on Israeli
cake
The president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has said that the Jewish
state of Israel must be wiped off the map. This has predictably created a
furore. Israel, for which Mr Ahmadinejad's remark was a godsend and which
has long declared Iran as its number one enemy, has intensified demands
that Tehran be expelled from the United Nations. But Israel is not alone
in crying out against Iran. The remark has got the entire international
community to sit up and start worrying. This includes countries that have
long opposed Israeli policies in the Middle East. As the Israeli Deputy
Prime Minister Shimon Peres has pointed out: "It's the first time since
the creation of the UN in 1945 that one of its members has openly called
for the destruction of another."
It is difficult to rationalise Mr Ahmadinejad's remark. It has come
at a time when Iran is already under the gun on the issue of carrying out
illegal nuclear activities despite being a signatory to the Nuclear
Non-proliferation Treaty. Worse, it seems to mock its own diplomatic
effort to win over as many UN member-states to its cause as possible to
thwart US pressure on itself. Under the circumstances, Mr Ahmadinejad may
have put paid to all such efforts by his thundering un-diplomatic remark.
Why has he seemingly gone out on a limb? We can only conjecture. Mr
Ahmadinejad is a hard-liner. When he defeated his rival, former president
Hashmi Rafsanjani, it was clear that internally the first cycle of
reformation within Iran had come to an end and the hard-liners had won
over the moderates and reformers. Mr Ahmadinejad was the mayor of Iran and
was considered upright and efficient. But he is also someone given to
taking drastic steps as he did when he was responsible for running Tehran.
He brings the same mindset to his new office. But that is precisely what
can prove dangerous for Iran and its carefully nurtured and nuanced policy
of the last two decades. Mr Ahmadinejad has to realise that he is not
dealing with municipal issues like prostitution and drugs in Tehran. His
current position bestows on him the responsibility for running an entire
country that has been grappling with the problem of identity and its place
in the world since the 1979 revolution.
Mr Ahmadinejad has shown himself prone to the same problem that is
manifested by most Islamist hard-liners: do and damn the world. This is
completely incompatible with international norms in the era of
nation-states. It also goes against the grain of suave diplomacy
demonstrated by Iran's foreign office since the crisis began on the issue
of uranium enrichment. Israel, which has been straining at the leash to
punish Iran and get the UN Security Council to isolate that country and
slap sanctions on it, has finally got the stick it needed to beat Tehran
with. It is a foregone conclusion that Mr Ahmadinejad's remark will be
juxtaposed with Iran's alleged intentions to develop a nuclear-weapon
capability. That Iran already has an advanced ballistic missile programme
is well-known. Mr Ahmadinejad's statement is the icing on the Israeli
cake. How unfortunate. *
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2005%5C10%5C29%5Cstory_29-10-2005_pg3_1
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