In a speech to a large crowd in the city of Bushehr on the Persian Gulf shore, the president said that the worse a dictator is, the more support he gets from the Americans and their allies, “the arrogant powers.”
Ahmadi-nejad harped on this point at considerable length as he sought to paint the United States in the worse light possible.
“We always say that freedom of expression and the right to decide one’s destiny, freedom to demand justice and dignity are the right of the people. People should choose their rulers, choose their directors. People are the ones who should say what is to happen in a given country, what kind of path a country should take.…”
But, he said, “Dictators are separated from their people and are hated by their people, and they depend on the arrogant powers. You imagine the world map in your mind. Bring rulers to your mind. All dictators everywhere in the world get support from the arrogant powers. And the worse that dictator is, the more he is supported.”
But Ahmadi-nejad also wanted to make the point that the Americans cast off used dictators and do not help them when they are in need. “Everybody should note that disloyalty and treachery are what we have been seeing from US politicians during these past 67 years [to 1944]. Whenever the dictators who had sacrificed themselves for the USA and obeyed its orders encountered a difficulty, the first thing the Americans did was to sacrifice those dictators for the sake of rescuing themselves.
“This Saddam committed crimes in order to attract the attention of the arrogant powers. However, when they saw that it was to their benefit to remove Saddam, they did not hesitate and did not tolerate him for a second. They took him away from the scene and destroyed him.”
Then the president turned to Iran. “They supported the traitorous Shah and the dependant dictator of this country. But when the Iranian people got furious, they did not even agree to give him refuge in their country and protect him. This shows their disloyalty.” Ahmadi-nejad ignored the fact that the US embassy was seized in 1979 precisely because the Carter Administration had given the Shah refuge, though Carter later asked him to take shelter elsewhere.
Ahmadi-nejad then gave his advice to the United States, saying it had two choices.
“One choice, which is to your benefit and will guarantee your future, is to join the ocean of nations, stop deceiving and be honest. Respect the people. Be with the people. This is to your benefit. The second choice is to continue with your arrogance and deception. I, on behalf of the people of Bushehr province who are here on behalf of the Iranian nation, will tell you that if you choose the second path, the people of the world have awakened and God’s hand will come out the sleeve of these people and take you out of your palaces and disgrace you.”
The crowd erupted in great applause.
Ahmadi-nejad then returned to one of his popular themes—that the Americans fear Iran’s vast technical achievements. “They are anxious about Iran’s developments. They are annoyed with our achievements, satellites, missiles, our nuclear, economic and biotechnological achievements.”
He said the Americans “consider themselves the owners of Iran. They think they used to have a territory and Iran was included in it. They think they can decide the fate of the Iranian people together with other foreigners.… They should know that this nation will never yield to the tyrant powers of the world.”
With that, the crowd began chanting vociferously.