President Ahmedinejad: Shut up!

The Iranian President Mahmud Ahmedinejad just a few minutes ago confirmed the wisdom of Obama's decision not to attend the annual UN conference against racism. The Iranian leader began his speech by calling Israel "completely racist," and arguing that the European "settlers and emigrants" were allowed to flood Palestine after WWII. But he did not mention why they were allowed to settle there? Hmm, maybe because 6 million of them had just been murdered and gassed?! Ahmedinejad's rhetoric is not only "vile," as the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described it, but it is also extremely unhelpful to Obama.

President Obama has staked a lot of political capital on his calm, deliberative, respectful foreign policy and has truly opened up new channels of dialogue with the Iranian regime(s). Ahmedinejad has responded by repeating (for the hundredth fucking time!) the same old anti-Semitic mantra against Israel and listing (again for the hundredth time) all the sins of the US in the world. More substantively, the Iranian regime at large has responded by jailing a US citizen and journalist on the obviously drummed up charges of treason. And of course by continuing to enrich uranium.

I still believe that Obama's foreign policy will yield much better results, and already is yielding these results, than Bush's cowboy showmanship. In fact, Obama's reception at the South American conference, his chat with Hugo Chavez and his overtures to Cuba, have really opened up a new era of US' relations with the rest of the world. It is also true that the US had been inflicting damage on many other countries for decades, it will take more than a couple of nice words from a well-intentioned President, to change the image of the US. But, having said that, the rest of the world, especially countries like Iran, have to meet Obama at least halfway!

Repeating the same-old anti-Semitic delusions, which we thought had been forever discredited by the horror of the Holocaust, is beyond unhelpful. It is criminal! So, President Ahmedinejad: shut up! And get off the stage!