Whether Holocaust Occurred Is A ‘View,’ Ahmadinejad Claims; He Says Obama Support For Israel Is A ‘Major Mistake’
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran has “legal rights” to manufacture nuclear materials, adding that this is a “special issue” for Iran.
His comments came as Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and some Democrats in Congress, are poised to eliminate any funding for the European Missile Defense system that would be built in the Czech Republic and Poland to guard against Iranian missiles launched toward Europe, U.S. forces there, or the United States.
It remains to be seen whether President Obama will modify the Gates defense budget proposal for the impending fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2010, before sending it to Congress. The Gates plan would provide no new funds for the European missile shield in fiscal 2010, leaving the program to limp along on any funds it might have left over at the end of the current fiscal 2009. Gates also would slash many other missile defense programs, and also an array of other military procurement programs.
Tehran claims it is producing fissile materials merely as fuel for electrical generation in reactors, but U.S. and European leaders fear that Iran plans to build nuclear weapons.
Iran recently launched a satellite using the same basic technology as an intercontinental ballistic missile, a satellite that a half hour after launch was over the United States.
While global opinion condemns the Iranian nuclear program, Tehran obstinately refuses to abandon it, even when Russia offered to supply already-prepared nuclear material to fuel any electrical generating plant.
Ahmadinejad appeared on the Sunday talk show, ABC This Week, where George Stephanopoulos asked him when Iran will sit down with the United States and European negotiators to discuss the illicit Iranian nuclear program.
Ahmadinejad refused to say when that might occur.
“The nuclear issue of ours is a special issue,” the Iranian leader said. “We think that the nuclear issue needs to be resolved in the context of the agency as regulations. You are just utilizing our legal rights. I have no reservations when it comes to talking, We’re all ready to talk.”
Asked whether those talks would be without preconditions, as President Obama last year himself proposed, in public statements while running for election to the White House, Ahmadinejad replied, “No, no,” insisting that the United States and Iran “should just have a clear-cut framework for talks. The agenda should be clear. But so far, we have only heard this from the media, the newspapers, that they’re interested in talking.”
So while Obama has said publicly and repeatedly that he would be open to unconditional talks with Iran, Ahmadinejad now seems to say that Iran will insist on conditions.
As well, Ahmadinejad seemed to try shifting the blame for a lack of talks onto Obama, asking why Obama didn’t attend a recent conference on racism.
The reason that the United States and many other nations didn’t attend the so-called racism talks is that they were actually a forum designed to accuse Israel and Jews of being racists, blaming Israel for responding in self-defense when Arab and Muslim groups attack Israel with mortars and missiles.
Ahmadinejad implied that he and Obama could have met at the conference, but said Obama refused to attend the anti-Jewish, anti-Israeli meeting.
“I was fully expecting … Obama to participate in the Geneva conference,” Ahmadinejad said. “What issue is more important than racial discrimination? … In don’t think Mr. Obama supports racism. However, the gentleman should have been there.” Obama is the first black U.S. president.
The Iranian official also spoke more broadly about a need to “prepare the ground [for] international security and peace … global disarmament.”
It was unclear whether that meant Iran won’t abandon its nuclear program unless the United States and other nuclear powers surrender all of their arms.
Holocaust Denier
Ahmadinejad previously has denied that the Holocaust — where German Chancellor Adolph Hitler ordered the murder of 6 million Jews – occurred. Further, Ahmadinejad has said Israel should be wiped from the map, and that Israel soon shall cease to exist.
Asked whether his denial of the Holocaust — an historical fact proven with evidence at myriad sites including the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum — in fact is not showing respect to the West, Ahmadinejad responded by talking about “Zionism.”
He added that he has a right to his opinion about whether the Holocaust occurred, just as Obama has a right to “have his own opinion” on the issue. Ahmadinejad also asked why one is not allowed to question the existence of the Holocaust.
Almost all objective observers see the systematic extermination of millions of people in gas chambers and ovens, merely because of their religious beliefs in the God of Abraham and Moses, as the ultimate act of bigotry and racism. But Ahmadinejad said it is the Jews in Israel who are racists.
“The Zionist regime is a manifestation of racism,” Ahmadinejad said. He also asked why, if the Holocaust indeed did occur in Europe, should the Jewish people be given a refuge, a homeland, in the Middle East, namely Israel?
Ahmadinejad also said that Palestinians should be permitted to vote to determine their own fate in a referendum. But he refused to say explicitly that if Palestinians voted for a two-state solution to the Middle East crisis that would include a Palestinian recognition of the right of Israel to exist, that Iran then also would recognize Israel. “Whatever decision they take is fine with us,” he said.
Many in the Middle East, not only people in the street but also some governments, favor annihilating the Jewish state of Israel by killing all the Jews there. Fortunately for Israel, the United States opposes the killing of Jewish Israelis or the destruction of Israel, a nation long a U.S. ally.
Iran has supplied many of the rockets and missiles used by Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah terrorists in southern Lebanon, who fire the weapons into Israel to damage buildings and injure and kill civilians.
Obama has supported the right of Israel to defend itself. Also, his secretary of state, then-Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), last year vowed that if Iran launches a nuclear- tipped missile on any Israeli target, the United States would annihilate Iran.
Ahmadinejad, asked about the Israel self-defense strikes in the Gaza Strip, lashed out at Obama, and at top Israeli leadership, condemning “criminals who were responsible for that atrocity.” Obama’s position was “a major mistake,” Ahmadinejad said.