April 21, 2017
Former President Mahmud Ahmadi-nejad thinks Hillary Clinton lost the election last November because the hidden cabal that actually runs America concluded a woman could not be fierce enough to lead US foreign policy.
The former president made the remarks to The Associated Press Saturday in his office in northern Tehran.
Ahmadi-nejad dismissed suggestions the US strike on a Syrian air base might also be a warning for Iran. “I do not think it has a message for Iran. Iran is a powerful country and people like Mr. Trump or the United States Administration cannot hurt Iran,” he said.
Ahmadi-nejad struck a mostly conciliatory tone during the interview, taking care to not stir up controversy that could alienate voters or clerical authorities.
He avoided repeating inflammatory statements that made him infamous in the West, such as those predicting Israel’s demise or questioning the scale of the Holocaust. He dodged questions about issues such as Iran’s missile program and the possible reaction by the US and Israel to another Ahmadi-nejad presidency.
Ahmadi-nejad said the strike on Syria could have happened even if Hillary Clinton had won the US election. He added that the decision to attack Syria was made by people behind the scenes in the US, indicating that the US presidency is decided behind closed doors—a popular theory in some corners of the world held by people who don’t believe such a thing as a democracy can exist.
“Those who are the directors [of the United States] must give the role [of president] to a person who can pull it off best. A woman cannot put up a good war face,” he said. “A man can do that better. They [the cabal that runs America] need to come up with a figure and say he is very dangerous.”
Ahmadi-nejad also dismissed the Trump Adminis-tration’s aggressive talk toward Tehran as political posturing, suggesting that a businessman like Trump with such varied international interests would rather avoid war. “If he were dangerous, he would not have $70 billion of assets. However, he has no choice but to play such a role,” he said.
It was unclear how Ahmadi-nejad arrived at that dollar figure, which is a dozen times greater than what Trump claims.
Ahmadi-nejad voiced reluctant support for the nuclear agreement. “The nuclear deal is a legal document and a pact. In the Islamic Republic, the officials and the Supreme Leader have approved of it and declared their commitment to it,” he said.
“The problem with the nuclear deal is how they advertised it. Both parties [Iran and the US] have represented it in such a way as if it can solve all the issues of human history. That was incorrect. It later turned out to be untrue,” he said. Actually, both parties said it only dealt with the nuclear issue and left other conflicts between the two countries unresolved.
