Ahmadinejad’s image problem
By Khaled Diab
Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad’s unpolished US appearances demonstrate just how bad at modern
diplomacy the regime in Tehran is.
October 2007
I am no fan of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s hardline politics
which are playing straight into the hands – or more accurately the talons – of
Washington hawks. But I felt a certain twinge of sympathy for the Iranian
president, and more so for the Iranian people, at his sorry bungling of his US charm
offensive.
His ineptitude was almost as painful to watch as the
deafening beating of war drums by the well-oiled US corporate media machine.
Decked out in his shabby and ill-fitting suit, Ahmadinejad
cut less the figure of an international statesman and more one of what we call
in Egypt the ‘muwazaf’: the downtrodden, underpaid civil servant, dishevelled
from too much exposure to grinding poverty and tin-pot public transport,
plodding home with a newspaper under one arm and a watermelon under the other.
The expression of constant dread and disorientation on his
face gave the impression that some low-level functionary had been teleported to
the Big Apple from his dusty cubby-hole in a Tehran ministry to speak on behalf
of Iran. And his troubles did not stop with his wardrobe.
Of course, even Alastair Campbell would’ve had his work
cut out spin-doctoring Ahmadinejad’s image amid the frenzied and cynical
anti-Iranian ‘harm’ offensive that has already conquered large swathes of
America. Nevertheless, we have to ask: does the Iranian regime have any
international media and political advisers?
If it does, were these consultants napping when
Ahmadinejad accepted the invitation to Columbia University? It is common
practice, especially in America, for politicians to prearrange the minutest
details of their appearances before accepting invitations, including how they
will be introduced, vetting the questions they will be asked, how much talktime
they will receive, and so on.
I doubt Ahmadinejad had much foreknowledge of the tirade
of abuse with which Columbia University’s president Lee Bollinger introduced
him, saying the elected Iranian president exhibited “all the signs of a petty
and cruel dictator”, among other things. A stunned Ahmadinejad was only able to
respond that he found the comments an “insult”.
A German friend wondered what the reaction would’ve been
if US president George Bush were invited to, say, a German university and then
introduced as “a war criminal and mass murder” by his hosts. Even the
conservative Jerusalem Post was moved to observe
that: “The media had reported that this was a ‘speech’ or ‘debate’, but after
Lee Bollinger's introduction, it became a trial.”
