The Rosett Report: If Ahmadinejad Wants the UN, Let Him Have It


Don't renovate it, just move it to Tehran!	Photo from Ahmadinejad's official web site

If the Thais had to have a coup, they couldn’t have picked a better time for it — upstaging for a moment Tuesday’s all-Ahmadinejad all-the-time media coverage of the UN General Assembly.

But only for a moment. Ahmadinejad came to New York to strut the world stage, and last evening that is exactly what the UN helped him do — despite Iran’s mockery of the Security Council’s August 31 deadline to surrender its nuclear bomb program.

From the United Nations press balcony, with its view across the vast chamber of the General Assembly, there was a particularly good view of Ahmadinejad’s transmogrification during this performance from a scruffy little man in a sports jacket to Big Brother gloating over his nuclear racket. Standing in front of the dais manned by high UN officials, the whole scene set against the stage’s sweeping golden backdrop and UN emblem, he began speaking in a soft voice. He quickly got louder and louder, declaiming, ranting, and finally almost chanting, shaking his finger, slicing his hands through the air, delivering a speech packed with “truth,” “peace” “virtue” “justice” — but inverted, twisted, indifferent to facts and emptied of meaning. He lied his head off about Iran’s nuclear bomb program, he rewrote history in his continuing campaign to erase the state of Israel, he blamed on others the terrorist atrocities underwritten by his own regime. He told us that together we can “pave the road for human perfection,” and that peace and justice — as he imagines it for all of us — will sooner or later prevail, “whether we like it or not.”

All this was, as Hugh Hewitt sums it up, “chilling” — “establishing a precedent for all future rogue regimes.”

And what was the UN response? Not all UN delegations were present, but from the many that were, Ahmadinejad drew applause. In keeping with UN ritual, Deputy-Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown (Kofi was presumably at dinner) descended the dais to shake his hand.

That, apparently, is what you get at the UN these days if you are a messianic rogue terrorist-sponsoring tyrant making nuclear bombs in defiance of the Security Council. You get a lot of high-level handshakes, many on camera to beam back home to remind your oppressed citizens how powerful you are. Earlier this month, Kofi Annan himself traveled to Tehran to shake Ahmadinejad’s hand. They had the chance to meet again, at last week’s Non-Aligned summit in Cuba, where Annan thanked each and every participant for the many valuable contributions to whatever Annan’s been doing all these years. Annan’s schedule yesterday showed yet another meeting with Ahmadinejad, in New York — a few hours before the Iranian tyrant’s speech.

Whatever UN officials have been saying during all this handshaking, Ahmadinejad instead of closing his bomb factories keeps voicing demands of his own. In his speech, he demanded among other things that the UN Security Council be reconfigured to eliminate the privileged positions of such nations as the U.S. and U.K. (Russia, China and France, the other members of the veto-wielding Permanent Five, don’t seem to bother him as much). And until his full roster of favored candidates can be added, he wants seats for some of his favorite groups, such as the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the Non-Aligned Movement.

What to do about all of this?

The NY Sun has a good idea: Arrest him.

Geneva-based UN Watch says: Expel him.

I’ll add to the list one more suggestion. What makes that UN stage such a prize for the likes of Ahmadinejad is the support — both political and financial — conferred upon it by the democratic nations of the world, especially the United States. If the UN can’t deal with Ahmadinejad, let Ahmadinejad deal with the UN. Get out, and give it to him. Send it to Tehran, lock, stock and reconfigured Security Council. Let him make all the speeches he wants. With that clutter out of the way, and with the $5.3 billion the U.S. would save every year, plus the considerable moral and political capital we have been squandering on the UN, we might just have a shot at creating in its place institutions that work.

Comments (13)

Gayle Miller :

The U.N. clowns wouldn't WANT to relocate to Tehran - where's the fun in that? If you're caught spying, you don't get expelled, you get exterminated. If you are chasing "ladies of easy virtue" - oh wait, there aren't any of those. No fancy restaurants, no non-enforcement of parking laws, none of that. Just sharia law, plain and simple.

However, I think we really do need to take a stand and quit paying lip service to this increasingly irrelevant and - to us at least - increasingly dangerous organization.

Sep 20, 2006 02:46 PM

M. Magaletti :

It's 1933 all over again. He is telling us exactly what he is going to do. And we won't believe it until Tel Aviv disappears in a radioactive cloud.

Sep 20, 2006 03:49 PM

Brian :

Claudia wrote:

"Standing in front of the dais manned by high UN officials, the whole scene set against the stage’s sweeping golden backdrop and UN emblem, he began speaking in a soft voice. He quickly got louder and louder, declaiming, ranting, and finally almost chanting, shaking his finger, slicing his hands through the air . . ."

Normally I don't like Hitler comparisons . . . but . . .

First, there is the well-known message Mr. Achmadinejab has been spouting, seemingly forever, in which he fingers his scapegoats and promises their annihilation. His threats are naked and credible, yet the egalitarian wonder, the UN, looks on with tolerance, if not downright approval. Hitler's message was no different, his terms with the world the same as Mr. Achmadinejab's, yet what does the UN do?

Second, there is the inversion of reality and fantasy, of projecting his own pathologies onto those he demonizes, a twist which unprincipled, agenda driven people would, first, have us take seriously, and secondly, then for us to negotiate with Mr. Achmadinejab, to cut a deal with him, to resolve the current "problem", a problem of Achmadinejab's own creation. How different is this from the way the world met Hitler in the 30's, and tried to appease him, after Hitler had created his grievances himself purely to gain concessions?

Third there is the delivery, which is highly reminiscent of the technique Hitler used to whip his countrymen to a frenzy: the soft, almost awkward beginning, which built to a crescendo of hate against the groups he demonized, the words emphasized by well-practiced hand, arm and body gestures, delivered in a vast hall betokening the power of the state (in this case, the illusory power of the member states). Sounds like the whole thing was demagogic theater at its purest.

(Caveat: Hitler liked to arrive late for his speeches, which boosted the tension of his audience. He also liked dramatic lighting and sets. The Iranian president still has something to learn . . .).

I agree with Claudia that we should send the UN a-packing out of the US, and I'd love for them to resettle in Tehran (it'd almost be worth funding the cost of the move, but only if to Tehran). But I'm not yet -- yet -- to the point of saying the US should leave the UN altogether.

I think we should decrease our contribution to it from $5.3 billion to, say, perhaps $500,000, and remain on the UNSC for the perverse purpose of exercising our veto.

If UN member states want to kick us off the Security Council, fine. We reduce our contribution to the UN to $0.02 per annum, which is still more than the UN's worth, and we use our position as a member state as a bully platform.

Then, we use the money we saved -- those $5,299,999,999.98 -- and use it for something useful. Like, as Claudia suggested, creating institutions that work.

Do I sound pissed? Cynical? Both of the above?

Brian

Sep 20, 2006 05:04 PM

flicka47 :

Better yet,let's give him what he says he wants.
Give everyone in the general assembly the veto power!
These maroons won't be able to agree on what day of the week it is!
Actually,I'd be happier just to kick all the bums out!

Sep 21, 2006 02:03 AM

Ray :

The primary value of the U.N. is it's retro entertainment. But something was missing, oh yes, did Hugo pound on the podium with his shoe? Sorely missed this time was Castro's two hour diatribe now replaced by Hugo's sulferous, verbal flatulence.

As entertainment, I prefer watching paint dry.

Sep 21, 2006 06:00 AM

El Jefe Maximo :

As I said on my own blog, Baby Hugo and Mad Jad can get away with their antics because they know quite well that Bush and America are not devils: if they were, Baby Hugo and Mad Jad would be locked up in Guantanamo, obedient puppets would be running their countries, and nothing uttered in the United Dictators General Assembly would possibly be objectionable in any way to said devils.

Too bad we can't get rid of the UN entirely: it lets dwarf countries punch out of their weight and allows their leaders to get undue attention from the chattering classes.

That said, I don't see how we can get out of it -- we need to be in so we can throw a spanner in the works occasionally and prevent it from doing anything too stupid. But in general, too bad the thing can't collapse of its own weight - it's as bad or worse an idea and institution than the League of Nations.

Sep 21, 2006 09:51 AM

The Humanoid :

I think we have to get positive about the good things the UN can do. I suggest we have them institute a new UN program - spinach-for-oil. Kofi, his family and friends can buy up the spinach fields of California and make a killing - literally. (Kofi, baby, give it some serious thought. The profit opportunites are just waiting to be picked, or is it harvested)

Sep 21, 2006 04:35 PM

JoJo :

There is something you said that is bothersome:

"during this performance from a scruffy little man in a sports jacket"

What does his physical stature have to do with anything?? You make it sound as though being short is part of the problem, as if being short makes one contemptible.

Replace the word "little" with "gay" or "jew" or "black" and this board would be lit up with comments attacking you rather than the subject of your post. The fact that we don't see any such comments is bothersome as well ... it means it is quite acceptable to malign short men with impunity.

Look, Im not some short guy who's "offended" by such things. But your striking use of one's physical stature in an obviously degrading way should raise red flags immediately, and it doesn't here. I know Amadinajad inflames passions, but lets not run roughshod over others in order to get our indignation on the record ... at the very least.

Sep 21, 2006 08:18 PM

Fen :

Hitler's message was no different, his terms with the world the same as Mr. Achmadinejab's, yet what does the UN do?

"If we don't offend Hitler, he will leave us alone" - Europe 1938

Sep 21, 2006 09:29 PM

Esav Benyamin :

It is tempting to propose leaving the UN and creating a United Democratic Nations instead, but whom shall we invite to join us?

Leaving Libya and Sudan behind but inviting France? How about Russia and China, with whom we have extensive and important economic relations?

Even close allies like Great Britain and Israel have their own ways and their own interests, not always our own.

The original UN was an organic outgrowth of the separate and interlocking alliances of the Second World War. We weren't all friends, but we had one overarching interest in common, and that vanished on VE Day and VJ Day.

Romantic adherence to wartime propaganda led us to invite every other nation into the club, instead of restructuring it into a western alliance more like NATO, with the power to negotiate effectively with our enemies, instead of pretending they were becoming just like us.

Sep 22, 2006 02:18 AM

Seymour Paine :

tehran or some place in Africa, like, uh, Dar es Salaam.

Sep 22, 2006 02:35 PM

Tom Grey - Liberty Dad :

The USA should contribute no more to the UN than the least contributor (China?) on the UNSC.

But the world needs a World Cop.

The USA, plus the UK and Japan, and (second most important) INDIA, should form a new organization.

The Human Rights Enforcement Group, whose primary purpose is to enforce two human rights, free speech, and free religion, and to stop mass murder by the gov't (genocide or otherwise). It should ONLY be democracies.

Enforcement actions would require coalitions, but only of the willing, and only if the HReg org declared a country's gov't in gross violation of Human Rights.

Sep 22, 2006 05:12 PM

pst314 :

"If you are chasing 'ladies of easy virtue' - oh wait, there aren't any of those."

Actually, there are quite a few in Iran. And the mullahs are up to their eyeballs in protection rackets.

Sep 23, 2006 11:54 AM

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If Ahmadinejad Wants the UN, Let Him Have It