Can Ahmadinejad Play the American Public?
Interview-Granting Iranian President Shows Pattern of Damage Control
(February 19, 2007) Two months after being elected president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for the annihilation of the State of Israel. “Israel must be wiped off the map,” he told a crowd in Tehran in October 2005, reported by the Arabic news station Al Jazeera.
After worldwide outrage Iranian officials came out with a different translation of their president’s remarks: “Israel must vanish from the pages of time.” Regardless, the Iranian president would clearly like to see the State of Israel vanquished.
And for Ahmadinejad, inextricably linked to Israel’s future demise is America, “The Great Oppressor” as he sees it, a nation that has steadfastly supported Israel for the last 60 years. Many in the Arab world even see the destruction of the Twin Towers as retaliation for American support of Israel.
Ahmadinejad, for his part, has also seen a rattling vulnerability among post- Sept. 11 Americans. So in a letter to President Bush last year, he sought to connect with that vulnerability, lecturing Bush on the traumas of Sept.11. “All governments have a duty to provide security and peace of mind for their citizens,” he stated. “American citizens lived in constant fear of fresh attacks that could come at any moment and in any place. They felt insecure in the streets, in their places of work and at home.”
Three months after the ominous letter, as America took the lead globally in denouncing Iran’s resolve to fast-track its nuclear program, Ahmadinejad decided to speak to CBS’ 60 Minutes. “We support … the oppressed people of the U.S.,” he told Mike Wallace. He found himself “saddened” to hear how many Americans are imprisoned. “And 45 million people don’t have health care coverage,” he said. “That is very sad to hear.”
A month later, while attending the U.N. General Assembly in New York, Ahmadinejad told Time: “My general impression is that the people of the United States are good people. Everywhere in the world, people are good … everybody can love one another.”
Then two weeks ago, with more international outrage sparked in recent months after Ahmadinejad declared the Middle East conflict will be over when the “Holocaust’s truth is ruled out,” the Iranian leader granted Diane Sawyer of ABC News an interview.
Hearing a report that he is often sentimental, Sawyer asked if he cried often. “Yes, that’s true” he said. “When I see people suffering … when I see on TV, for example, some Americans, because of tornados or a hurricane, they have lost their homes, I become sad.”
Also sad is how in Ahmadinejad’s own country, respect for the most basic of human rights, such as freedom of expression and opinion, continued to “deteriorate considerably in 2005,” along with the “routine use of torture” to punish dissidents, according to Human Rights Watch’s 2006 report. Does he cry for them?
PRAYER POINT – Pray that America will not waver in its support of Israel. God is using America to help preserve and protect the State of Israel. “But Israel will be saved by the Lord with an everlasting salvation; you will never be put to shame or disgraced, to ages everlasting” (Is. 45: 17).
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