Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is heading to New York for the annual UN General Assembly. He has been weakened internally by political forces, and what’s troubling is that those forces appear to be even more hardline than he is. So he needs a good showing on the world stage to provide evidence that he is still a political force in Iran.
Be sure to take notes…
In addition to attending UN events, and speaking on before the body on Thursday, he will apparently dine with students at Columbia University. You may recall that in 2007 he spoke at Columbia as a guest of University President Lee Bollinger. What will the students “learn” from the Iranian President? Perhaps he can regale them with his analysis of how Zionists started both world wars, or his other theories about how Jews (and the United States) are responsible for every imaginable evil. As much as the University may want to call this an “educational opportunity,” giving a platform to someone like Ahmadinejad is granting him legitimacy that he does not deserve. And the very notion of education implies that the Iranian President is interested in truth. Based on his wacky theories about the world, he seems to have little interest in seeking anything resembling the truth.
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