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Over the past few days, controversy surrounding Columbia University’s invitation for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak has developed around campus, across the national media, and among the presidential candidates.
According to the Islamic Republic News Agency, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had the following to say about his visit to Columbia University, "The United States is a big and important country with a population of 300 million. Due to certain issues, the American people in the past years have been denied correct and clear information about global developments and are eager to hear different opinions.” While Americans are not fooled by Ahmadinejad’s attempts to appear moderate and reasoned, it is important for us to listen to what Ahmadinejad has to say and challenge him on both his deceptive rhetoric and his unacceptable actions within Iran.
Relations between the United States and Iran have been rocky to say the least since the Islamic Revolution of 1979 in Iran. Now, Iran’s possible nuclear capabilities have led to talk of war. The Bush administration has demonstrated a foreign policy based on a lack of diplomacy and preemptive military action. Rather than engage Iran in negotiations, the current administration insists on threatening military action of Iran doesn’t comply with American demands. War with Iran amidst military action in Iraq and Afghanistan would exhaust American troops beyond repair, making the United States vulnerable to attack.
During the Cold War, Americans viewed Stalin, Khrushchev, and Brezhnev in a similar way as we view Ahmadinejad now. The same talk of nuclear war went on between the end of World War II and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Throughout the conflict, the United States and the Soviet Union were bitterly opposed to each other, but that never stopped the leaders of the two countries from talking. Diplomacy successfully evaded armed conflict between the world’s two superpowers.
To avoid a catastrophic war with Iran, the American government must act diplomatically with Iran, as it did during the Cold War. The first step to diplomacy is understanding; our government must understand Ahmadinejad’s point of view to be able to negotiate with his regime. University President Lee Bollinger has recognized this necessity and has invited Ahmadinejad to campus to share his views with students and faculty and ask the tough questions our government refuses to ask. Columbia University is engaging Ahmadinejad in a way the Bush administration and other countries should.
But I wouldn't protest him today. Why? First of all, he's in the U.S. looking for attention. Any kind of attention. Anything that will demonstrate that he is a powerful man who intimidates the government of the powerful Great Satan, making him a fearsome leader in the Middle East.
Second of all, what exactly might we protest now? His right to speak at an American university? Well, that's a bit counterproductive for demonstrating the values of an open democracy (Indeed, Iran can counter that it too is nominally a democracy, but when the candidates are vetted and the votes tallied by cleric-ocrats, that claim becomes null and void). Iran's nuclear ambitions? According to them, there are no nuclear weapons, only energy sources. His desire to destroy Israel? He only waves that flag to, again, get attention and consolidate his influence in the region, and to distract his own supporters, generally the urban poor, to, uh, forget that they're still poor.
Why is Ahmadinejad's point of view the important one? Aren't the mullahs largely the ones pulling the strings in Iran?
One possible strategy for the President: He might do best to render Ahmadinejad irrelevant by refusing to recognize him as Iran's true head of state. Instead, publicly recognize the mullahs, the ones who actually control Iran, and make it clear that at any summit he'll meet only with them.