“God gives us talents and facilities. If we had nothing in our history but just the cultural heritage of Yazd, then we could claim to be the most honorable, the most civilization-creating, and the most culture-creating nation in the world. Now you put all the cities of Iran together, and we should create an economic system that will match the Iranian nation’s dignity and be a pattern and model for the entire world,” he said.
The regime has been talking for some time about creating a new Islamic economic model that would be different from capitalism and communism. It has called on economists to come up with something, but has never got beyond describing it in vague terms as “just” and “compassionate.”
Ahmadi-nejad said, “Iran can be the first country in the world in science and technology. We were [the first country of the world] for hundreds of years. It is not something that we have not experienced before. We were [the first power] and today we are even more notable. Today, we number 75 million. We were [the first power] when our population was less than this and now we are 75 million. God willing, we will be 80, 90 million or 100 million by 2025.”