Profile - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: The Iranian president drew the ire of US critics during his visit to the 'Great Satan', but his controversial appearances boosted his flagging popularity at home, writes Mary Fitzgerald.
Forget climate change, Darfur and the unfolding crisis in Burma. For most Americans last week's UN general assembly could mean only one thing - Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was coming to town.
Washington's current chief bogeyman had made the pilgrimage to UN headquarters twice before, amid ever-increasing controversy. At a time of ratcheting tensions between the US and Tehran over Iran's nuclear ambitions and its alleged arming of Shia militias in Iraq, the last thing anyone expected this time around was a low-key meet and greet. Even before his Iran Air 747 touched down at JFK, Ahmadinejad was raising hackles with his request - immediately declined - to lay a wreath at the site of the World Trade Centre. Then there was the shrill debate over whether he should be allowed to address an audience in the august surroundings of Columbia University, which soon disintegrated into arguing whether he should be let into the country at all. New York's tabloids howled in outrage and splashed their front pages with headlines declaring "The Evil has Landed" and referring to Ahmadinejad as the "Madman Iranian Prez". In the midst of the media brouhaha, news anchor Katie Couric helpfully confided to viewers that she remembers how to pronounce his name with the mnemonic "I'm a dinner jacket".
As for Ahmadinejad himself, he appeared to be rather enjoying all the attention. Yes, he was booed by protesters, savaged by the tabloids and Fox News, ridiculed for claiming there were no gay people in Iran, and excoriated as a "petty and cruel dictator" by the president of Columbia University, but far more important for Ahmadinejad was how the visit would play for domestic consumption back in Iran.
In 2005 the diminutive former mayor of Tehran emerged from the political wilderness to become president of Iran. Running on a populist ticket that emphasised his humble roots as a blacksmith's son, Ahmadinejad's election took many by surprise. Two years on, the president's star has fallen considerably at home. While his inflammatory rhetoric on the nuclear issue has caused some unease, as has a recent crackdown on academics, most domestic criticism centres on his failure to deliver on election pledges to raise living standards and tackle unemployment by harnessing oil revenues. Iranians grumble about rising housing costs, and the fact that the price of fruit, vegetables and other basic foodstuffs has more than doubled in the past year.
Ahmadinejad, an engineer with a PhD in traffic management, has made some highly controversial economic decisions, such as ordering banks to cut interest rates to 12 per cent and introducing petrol rationing earlier this year, a move that sparked violent protests. In June, a group of 57 economists, including former officials, wrote an open letter accusing him of mismanaging the economy. Increasingly disillusioned Iranians rolled their eyes when Ahmadinejad shrugged off such criticism by saying he takes advice from his local butcher, a man he says "knows all the economic problems of the people". Last December, his allies were trounced in municipal elections, a result many interpreted as evidence of increasingly sour attitudes towards the president and his broken promises.
GIVEN SUCH PRESSURESat home, Ahmadinejad would have been only too grateful for the chance to play the role of plucky president standing up to what he described last week as "arrogant powers" right in the maw of the Great Satan itself. In what has become something of a ritual, the Iranian president's sojourn in New York was shrewdly planned to maximise publicity. Bookending his address to the UN general assembly with press conferences, TV interviews and meetings with academics and religious groups, Ahmadinejad and his advisers ensured each appointment served a purpose. An event attended by selected members of the Iranian diaspora, open only to Iranian media, ensured footage of expats applauding the president. Images of Ahmadinejad in his Manhattan hotel suite receiving gifts from rabbis representing Neturei Karta, the fringe Jewish anti-Zionist group, helped muddy accusations of anti-Semitism arising from his statements on the Holocaust and Israel. Similarly, he told a gathering of hand-picked journalists he believed Hitler was a "despicably dark" force who had caused "irreversible harm" and had no concept of justice or human dignity.
By the end of the week, the huge exposure his visit generated in the US and international media appeared to have bolstered the president's standing at home.
"Mr Ahmadinejad was the centre of the world news for the past few days," gushed one reporter on Iranian TV, as politicians and media in the Islamic Republic - including some who have previously criticised the president - hailed his visit a triumph and denounced the way he was treated at Columbia University. One reformist newspaper praised Ahmadinejad in an editorial, saying "his logic and composure in the face of the Columbia University head's disgracing remarks is a cause of pride for all Iranians". Even Mohsen Mirdamadi, leader of Iran's largest pro-reform party, acknowledged that the stinging criticism Ahmadinejad encountered in the US served only to boost the president's popularity at home.
New York Timescolumnist Maureen Dowd agreed. "New York's hot blast of nastiness, jingoism and xenophobia toward its guest, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, only served to pump him up for his domestic audience," she wrote.
Another Iranian newspaper picked up on how the visit may be perceived in the wider Muslim world. "By fearlessly and courageously walking into the 'Lion's Den' . . . he is sure to become even more of a hero in the Arab-Muslim street than before," it wrote.
Ahmadinejad's side-stepping at Columbia University when challenged on his statements questioning the Holocaust showed how carefully he plays to his own audience, whether in Iran or the wider Muslim world. Turning the issue around, he asked "Why is it that the Palestinian people are paying the price for an event they had nothing to do with?" - an argument he knew would strike a chord in the Middle East.
IN ALL HISpublic pronouncements last week, Ahmadinejad said little that he has not already said several times before . His address to the UN general assembly opened with the same meandering, religiously inspired rumination on the future of humanity that he tends to append to all his speeches. After being greeted by a round of applause from delegates, he expounded on "prospects for a brighter and more hopeful future", talking of "the appearance of the sublime, and beauty, compassion and generosity, justice and blossoming of all the God-given human talents and the prominence of faith in God and realisation of the promise of God". He railed against globalisation and spoke of native cultures being subjected to "broad and destructive aggressions" by "other powers" he did not name, although it was obvious who he had in mind. It was time, he said, for those powers "to return from the path of arrogance and obedience to Satan to the path of faith in God", going on to forecast an age of prosperity, love and friendship, all delivered in flowery language reminiscent of a TV evangelist.
AFTER DISMISSING EARLIERin the week the prospect of a US or Israeli strike on Iran, Ahmadinejad reiterated his country's ambitions for nuclear power, telling world leaders the issue was "closed" and that military threats and sanctions had failed. His unapologetically nationalist defence of Iran's right to a nuclear programme, delivered from the UN lectern, would have played well to the home audience. "We're all well aware that Iran's nuclear issue is a political issue - it's not a legal issue," he added, stressing that Iran had not violated any of the rules of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
At a somewhat raucous press conference held immediately afterwards, several reporters clamoured to shake his hand before he sat to take questions. When a journalist from Israel's Channel 10 asked him if he was worried about the possibility of an Israeli air raid on Iran similar to one it carried out recently in Syria, he just smiled and said: "Next question." He remained unruffled when the wife of an Israeli soldier captured by Hizbullah last year identified herself and asked Iran to co-operate with the Red Cross on her husband's case. His ever-present smile never faltered, even when asked about a recent rounding-up of academics and intellectuals in Iran. Denying there had been targeted persecution, he turned to a religious metaphor. "Everyone is under surveillance," he intoned mysteriously. "The surveillance of almighty God." When an Iranian-American reporter asked him to expand on his claim to the Columbia University audience that there were no gay people in Iran, saying that she knew a few herself, Ahmadinejad chuckled. "Seriously? I don't know any," he replied, before asking her for their addresses so "we can go meet them and find out more about them".
Ahmadinejad and his entourage left New York with the news that the US Senate had voted overwhelmingly in favour of a move to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organisation. As Americans struggle to digest the Iranian president's controversial visit amid increasingly belligerent talk from Washington, some point out that attempts to demonise him are misplaced, given that it is ultimately Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei - and not Ahmadinejad - who calls the shots and dictates Iran's nuclear strategy.
Ahmadinejad's posturing over the last week will be interpreted in many different ways in Tehran and Washington. In the US, the clash of opinions on his visit reflects the wider conundrum on how to deal with Iran - whether to continue negotiating, push for more punitive sanctions, or increase the drumbeats of war.
The Ahmadinejad File
Who is he?President of Iran.
Why is he in the news?His visit to New York for the UN general assembly last week. He was jeered by protesters who likened him to Hitler, ridiculed for claiming there were no gay people in Iran, and denounced as a "petty and cruel dictator" by the president of Columbia University.
Most appealing characteristic: Hmm, tough one. Some Iranians cheer him for his uncompromising defence of their country's nuclear ambitions. Others are fast losing patience with his "man of the people" act as Iran's economy goes into a tailspin.
Least appealing characteristic: His views on the Holocaust - he has called for more "research" on it - and his hardline presidency which has resulted in the rounding up of dissidents and academics.
Most likely to say: What's wrong with Iran going nuclear?
Least likely to say: Some of my best friends are gay.