…but it’s really just a comment. It’s here because the spam filter is out of control and it hates links.
It is a comment intended to answer Scott Eric Kaufman’s question regarding Ahamadinejad’s visit to the US.
Where exactly is this playing well?
Tehran. The New York Times. With some at Columbia. The BBC.
And of course, there’s plenty of love and concern from the usual suspects in the nutroots. (Note that 498 respondents to that poll, or 32% would rather have Ahmadinejad as President of the US than Bush)
Where is it playing well? Precisely where he expected it to.
As for the negative reactions that Scott notes, which are plentiful and rightly so, is there any real value in them? Were any bridges built? Did we gain any new cross-cultural understanding? Have we learned anything new about Ahmadinejad or Iran from either the speeches or the reactions to them? Is there any real effect from his visit other than to provide him with fresh propaganda fodder?
I think not.
Comment by cicero on 9/28 @ 12:12 pm #
So, there was, you say, no effect, except amongst the people you already disagree with (and would have disagreed with anyway had the moron not spoken at Columbia)?
Yep, Scott is all wet.
Saying something happened is objective, pablo, and unfortunately, Scott has reality to back him up. Nothing important happened.
Comment by Pablo on 9/28 @ 12:17 pm #
No, there was no effect among them either. What part of “Is there any real effect from his visit other than to provide him with fresh propaganda fodder?” did you miss?
Now, what reality is it Scott has (and which I explicitly acknowleged) that “backs him up” and which I lack?
Here’s an idea. Try answering one or two of the 5 questions in my next to last paragraph.
Comment by Pablo on 9/28 @ 12:44 pm #
BTW, where, exactly, did I say that or anything like it, cicero? He posed a question, I answered it and asked a few more.
How did you get something different out of what I posted?
Comment by SEK on 9/28 @ 9:08 pm #
Damn it, I hope I wore my earplugs, or I’m going to have a massive infection tomorrow. But I digress. (Gress? I’ve no “gress” to “di” from yet.)
As for the Kos thing, well, most of the commenters seem to think along these lines:
But how am I supposed to choose between a warmongering idiot who’s destroyed a country and a huge number of people and shredded the constitution and a man who would force me to shut up and dress as if its the twelfth century? Some hypotheticals have no answer.
The poll’s idiotic, and should be treated as such. As for the commenters at the Times, well, they’re commenters at the times, and the article you linked to was written (as were most of the comments) before the talk, so I don’t think it (or they) qualifies.
As for the negative reactions that Scott notes, which are plentiful and rightly so, is there any real value in them? Were any bridges built? Did we gain any new cross-cultural understanding?
As I mentioned in the original thread:
I’ve been thinking about this more, and the more I think about it, the more I like the decision to let him spout his lunacies in a forum he 1) didn’t control and 2) couldn’t intimidate after the fact. When last he spoke of the “wiping Jews off the planet†and “the Holocaust didn’t exist,†the Iranian media attempted to palm it to poor interpretation. He can’t do that here. When he made the comment about there being no gays in Iran, the audience laughed at  not with, but at  him. That would never happen in Iran  actually, that would never happen to Bush in the States. But you know what? The man needs to be laughed at. He’s proven, beyond a doubt  and to everyone, across the political spectrum  that he’s not the sort of person who can be reasoned with. This should please you, I think, because it makes it more likely that the Democrats will lobby to put pressure on Iran. Before, they could be quasi-neutral and point to how Iraq is the real problem  but now, when confronted with the problem of Iran, they’ll have to wrestle with the fact that it’s a country without The Gays, &c. He’s made a mockery of himself on the world’s stage.
I agree with myself: he’s made it impossible for anyone to even consider treating him as a rational interlocutor, and that wasn’t the case earlier.
Have we learned anything new about Ahmadinejad or Iran from either the speeches or the reactions to them?
For one, I thought there were gays in Iran. For another, he proved himself to be, not the creation of a hostile media determined to depict him as unhinged, but honestly, sans mediation, unhinged.
Comment by happyfeet on 9/29 @ 2:27 am #
I thought the part where he wanted to make Israel go away with flames and stuff and the part where he held Holocaust denial conferences and the part where he sponsored terrorism was supposed to be sufficient to prove to a domestic audience that he was sort of not good people.
In his own neighborhood, I think nothing he said at Columbia is at all beyond the pale, and at the very least his confrontational narrative is undiminished.
It’s damaging when this guy gets a seat at the table with his ostensible betters, because it proliferates the idea that there are no consequences for, you know, killing innocent people, and sponsoring an ideology that degrades a sense of common humanity.
There’s no doubt that this event will be folded into his narrative in a way that’s at least innocuous, and quite likely triumphal. While the downside is supposed to be that some self-evidently not real quick on the uptake faction of the left had a real eye-opening experience?
It’s not like audiences left Saw II discussing among themselves precisely who it was that was supposed to be the villain of the piece.
Comment by Pablo on 9/29 @ 3:32 am #
Ah, but many have found an answer, Scott. “I’ll take the little Mahdi!”
Agreed. I mentioned it only to note the idiots. And no, cicero, I’m not talking about you, though I could be.
And it still won’t happen in Iran. In the transcripts they’ve seen, that part was missing.
Not quite. First, there’s the idiots who think Scott Pelley a thug, and then there are those with agendas that such dismissal just won’t jibe with. Mohamed el-Baradei may well be one of those. In too many circles the facts don’t matter, only the spin does. Propaganda, in other words.
But didn’t you already know that? Again, if you’ve been paying attention to the guy, there’s no other conclusion you can draw.
Comment by happyfeet on 9/29 @ 4:26 am #
I think I meant promulgates.
Also, sheesh
The deal here is this editorial tracks with a lot of SEK’s viewpoint, but see how easily it starts from the same place but goes so obscenely off-course. This is why I have trouble believing that Ahmadinejad is not coming out way ahead on this dealio… it’s yeah he was stoopid about the gay thing lol but you know you gotta admit he had a point about…
Comment by cicero on 9/29 @ 12:58 pm #
I know it’s not my discussion, so Scott feel free to ignore me (you, too, Happyfeet), but one of the finer points of besting pablo, is that he cannot ignore me.
As for the quote above, it’s typical of his bi-polar world view. You speak Farsi, Pablo? How worldly of you! Do you watch Iranian TV on satellite? No, but you the mind of the entirety of the Iranian people and “what they’ve seen”?
If not, how can claim that statement to be part of your argument. For what you have as an understanding of Iran: the understanding of the Michael Ledeens and Dick Cheneys of the world, the Iranians must be evil because we don’t like their government.
How do you know what they’ve seen? How many Iranians receive Turkmenistan satellite TV or Armenian or Turkish? If the damn country is so totalitarian, why are there demonstrations in the streets by college students requesting individual liberty?
Finally, if you hate Ahmadinejad so much, why are YOU making him so powerful. He’s a chump in the Iranian government, wielding little power, yet in your rush to show how brilliant you are by “hating the right people” you elevate to the level of a Saddam.
Further, you think attacking his country is a viable alternative, despite the fact that would only help him politically (”See, I told you the Americans hate Islam; they are attacking us because we want to be free.”).
Oh, and kudos to you, Scott, in all my weeks of reading PW as a lurker, I’ve never seen anyone control Pablo’s hostility so effectively. Usually by the third post with anyone he disagrees with, he is a rabid snarling dog. Your ability to brush aside his pettiness and engage him on his highest level, (around an earnest 10th grader, I would guess, though I may be giving him too much credit.) is impressive.
pablo, speaker of Farsi, watcher of Iranian TV, I will catch your act later.
PS. Man, we had people who hated the Parthians when I was alive too. Crassus went out there and literally lost his head to them….ruined the entire Republic. No parallels to see here, people. Keep moving
Comment by happyfeet on 9/29 @ 4:30 pm #
effing dirty Parthians
Comment by Pablo on 9/29 @ 6:30 pm #
Did someone say something?
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Comment by Eric in Atlanta on 9/30 @ 6:41 pm #
CHICKEN FARSI-SPEAKER!
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