So Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has spoken to Columbia. Perhaps you've read or seen some reports. The tough introduction from Columbia President Lee Bollinger. A'jad seemingly claiming that there are no homosexuals in Iran. The consensus seems to be that Ahmadinejad gave a rambling talk and made an a bit of an ass of himself.
But that's not what is being reported in Iran. As some predicted, it didn't matter what happened yesterday at Columbia. The propaganda masters in Iran make sure that it looks like President A'jad was welcomed and supported by Americans. He also gains the victory of being given a podium in America, demonstrating that Americans are so weak that they will allow their enemies to make their case on American soil. As the icing on the cake, if one listened to the audio of the speech (I have not found a copy online yet), it is clear that a good portion of the audience (some estimate about 1/4 of the room) actually supported Ahmadinejad, most vociferously in Ahmadinejad's defense of Palestinian terrorism. Interviews after the speech indicated that some students were impressed and convinced by some of his arguments. It doesn't matter if most people think him a fool; he only needs a strong enough minority to undermine the confidence of Western democrats. Anne Applebaum has more:
Ahmadinejad's agenda, though, differs from that of the traditional autocrat. His goal is not merely to hold power in Iran through sheer force, or even through a standard 20th-century personality cult: His goal is to undermine the American and Western democracy rhetoric that poses an ideological threat to the Iranian regime. Last winter, when he invited a host of dubious Holocaust-deniers to discuss the Holocaust in Tehran, he claimed that it was in order to provide shelter for the West's "dissidents" -- that is, for Western thinkers "who cannot express their views freely in Europe about the Holocaust." This week, he declared that his visit to New York would help the American people, who have "suffered in diverse ways and have been deprived of access to accurate information." Thus the speech at Columbia: Here he is, the allegedly undemocratic Ahmadinejad, taking questions from students! At an American university! Look who's the real democrat now!
Pres. Bollinger attacked Ahmadinejad as unreasonable, too cowardly to answer tough questions, and "either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated." If this is the case, Pres. Bollinger, to have invited him serves no good. It is simply to allow a murderous dictator a podium for vile propaganda. That's why you shouldn't have invited him in the first place.
Update: Stanley Kurtz has a slightly different take. While agreeing that Columbia should not have invited A'jad, Kurtz points out that A'Jad's presence at Columbia following the public outrage, mostly from the right, forced Lee Bollinger to do something many (most?) on the left are uneasy doing: clearly denounce the Iranian regime as evil. By the way, if Ahmadinejad is so bad, why did Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee vote to slash money intended to go to promote democracy in Iran? Luckily, the money was restored by the full Senate.
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