telling a meeting of the presidents of Russia, China and the Central Asian states that just about every evil to be found in the world could be laid at the feet of Westerners in general and Americans in particular.
Ahmadi-nejad was speaking last Wednesday at a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a group the Islamic Republic is very eager to join. But since the organization is intent on rebutting allegations that it is intended as a counter to the West, it isn’t clear that Ahmadi-nejad helped boost Iran’s application for membership.
In fact, the harsh and entirely negative speech left many observers wondering if Ahmadi-nejad had any idea what the SCO was even about, since he said so many contrarian things. In many ways, the speech sounded like something that would have been uttered by the likes of Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse-tung—rhetoric that modern Russia and China find embarrassing and unsophisticated.
Ahmadi-nejad didn’t hold back his rhetoric at all. He even blamed the United States for launching the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States and for causing the latest economic recession that has caused unemployment to balloon and investment to plummet in the United States.
Ahmadi-nejad opened by saying: “With due respect to all, I would like to present a few issues concerning international responsibilities in a friendly and sincere manner.” He then erupted in a violent stream of rhetorical assaults on the West.
“I begin with a few clear questions.
“Have any of our countries initiated the dark era of slavery and the destruction of hundreds of millions of people?
“Have any of our nations played a role in imposing the inhuman era of capitalism over large parts of the world?
“Have any of our countries plundered other nations’ cultures and wealth through colonialism?
“Have any of our countries begun or fanned the flames of the two World Wars and started tens of other wars since then which have resulted in the killing, injury and homelessness of tens of millions of people in various parts of the world?
“Have any of us used atomic bombs against the defenseless civilians of other nations?
“Have any of our countries imposed the Zionists and consequently a number of wars and over 60 years of insecurity, terror and threats to the nation of Palestine and other nations in the Middle East region?
“Have any of us set up or supported the ruling dictatorships in Latin America up until the last decade or in other parts of the world up until today?
“Which one of us has either initiated or supported the September 11 incident or the process of narcotic drugs in the region?
“Have our region and nations benefited or suffered from terrorism, narcotic drugs and extremism?
“Which one of our countries has a decisive role in the world’s economic structures or has planned and initiated the [current] global economic crisis?
“Have our countries created the difficult-to-bridge North-South gap?
“Which one of our countries has imposed war, illiteracy and poverty on Africa and taken its resources at a low cost?
“Which one of our countries will compensate for their shortcomings by injecting dollars with no backing, and create a crisis in the world’s economy?
“Do any of us put the wealth of countries into certain countries’ pockets through transferring our economic problems to other countries?…
“Our main question is why the slave owners, hegemonic powers, aggressors and main perpetrators of all the problems of the human community must be able to put our nations and our countries under pressure by changing face and making false claims of defending democracy and human rights? How can one trust the liars who make false claims, while, by using the unilateral system governing the world, they are pursuing the same old hegemonic objectives but with new slogans.…
“What have our nations and governments done that they should be put under pressure, threat and insult by the worst politicians in the world?… Your excellencies, there is no doubt today that the management of the same slave owners and hegemonic powers over the world is the main factor for the current instabilities.…
“I believe that together we can revise this management. I believe that we can jointly change the general process in the world in the interest of peace and justice. We can control the unbridled power of the world’s hegemonic power and return peace to the world,” Ahmadi-nejad said.