December 14, 2006
Ahmadinejad expands influence in Foreign Policy
After participating in Le Web 3 conference in Paris, I'm in Madrid now and have problems accessing the Internet. I'm thinking of coming here and seriously start studying Spanish.
What a lovely city, Madrid is. I just wish I had more friends here. Any readers from Madrid?
Anyway, the Holocaust conference was finally held and caught me in a surprise. I wasn't expecting it to happen, after all the problems the whole silly line of radical anti-Israeli rhetoric of Ahmadinejad has created.
The more surprising fact is that the conference is organised by and at the IPIS, a respected think-tank at the Foreign Ministry which was for years under Sadegh Kharrazi, the moderate young diplomat who then became the ambassador in France.
The fact that IPIS has organized the conference, to me, hints at the fact that Khamanei and Ali Larijani have approved Ahmadeinjead's anti-Israeli comments. Or at least have not been able to resist against him and his arguments.
Whatever the reason, this conference is a sign that Ahmadinejad is consolidating his power inside the system gradually, carefully and quite intelligently. This is very alarming.
This is basically his style: Using Khomeinist ideological talking points to disarm the traditionalist conservatives and the Khomeinist reformers and consolidate policy- making power in areas he has not much control on, such as nuclear negotioations, foreign affairs, oil, intelligence, etc.
Khatami with the same tactic could've disarmed Khamenei as well, but he didn't, for various reasons.
Posted by hoder at December 14, 2006 5:52 PM| TrackBack
Hi I'm a reader from spain, if you need information about it I can help you.
I am in total disagreement with herbert kaine's comments. Absolutely ignorant about iranien society and their view of holocaust an history. Sorry for my english.
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The comment by Herbert Kaine is a clear show of anti-Iranianism (see http://wikiran.org/wiki/Anti-Iranianism). It is sickening to come across such vile hatred from those who blindly believe in their own delusions and state their own ignorant opinions as facts.
Most Iranians probably don't know a whole lot about the Holocaust, and many probably don't know what it is. History and social studies courses in Iranian grade schools do not exactly deal with Western history in a comprehensive manner, nor are the histories of the two World Wars addressed in any serious detail. The same is true of pre-Islamic Iranian history which is frowned upon by the regime.
As I'm sure Herbert Kaine is completely ignorant of due to his uneducated and hateful comment, Iran was not directly involved in WW2. Instead it was invaded and temporarily occupied by the Soviets and the British (and soon afterwards the Americans), who also forcibly deposed the Shah. Iran itself had been neutral, and even after the Allied invasion Iran was not directly involved in the war.
In other words, WW2 was not Iran's war, nor was it a war that Iranians were involved in. The Holocaust is something most Iranians are not well aware of, and quite frankly, most Iranians couldn't care less about what Ahmadinejad wants to believe or not believe about the Holocaust. Why? Because they have jobs to go, bills to pay, wives and children to take care of. The last thing on their minds is Israel and the Holocaust.
So, Mr. Kaine, kindly get a life and get your thick head out of the sand.
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The reason no one in Iran opposed the conference is that most Iranians think the Holocaust is a fraud. Likely, only those Iranians who remember WWII believe in the Holocaust. I assume the younger Iranians do not, and spend most of their time training to invade Israel, to show them what a real holocaust is like
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