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Analysis: Iranian President Stands by Anti-Israel Comments
All Things Considered:October 28, 2005
Iranian President Stands By Anti-Israel Comments
MELISSA BLOCK, host:
This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Melissa Block.
ROBERT SIEGEL, host:
And I'm Robert Siegel.
In several world capitals, there have been denunciations of what Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said earlier this week. The Iranian president actually quoted from Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who led the Islamic revolution in Iran, and he said Israel must be wiped off the map. President Ahmadinejad's remark preceded Iran's annual observance of Jerusalem Day. The last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan is designated a day of struggle against Israel. There were several anti-Israel marches in the Middle East today. Among those declaring the Israel statement unacceptable: the British prime minister, the Japanese foreign ministry, the Vatican and many others. Even Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat pointed out that the Palestinians recognized Israel's existence.
Well, Trita Parsi is a Middle East specialist at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies. He's writing a dissertation on Israeli-Iranian relations.
Welcome to the program...
Mr. TRITA PARSI (School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University): Thank you.
SIEGEL: ...Mr. Parsi. And the Iranian president is repeating something that was said years ago, but is his use of such language unusually pugnacious, given the recent Iranian record?
Mr. PARSI: Well, ever since Khatami came into power in 1997, the Iranians started to realize that they cannot expect the world to understand that there's a difference between Iranian rhetoric and Iranian policies. They realized that they will be seen as the same, and Khatami started to tone down the rhetoric on Israel, realizing that it was only causing more problems for the Iranian state.
What is interesting with this specific instance is that no one as high up in the Iranian government, in such an official position, has said something like this for the last seven years. But if we go back 15 years, we even go back only 10 years, statements like this were not uncommon, and it was actually very uncommon to see the world react to it the way it has today.
SIEGEL: Well, which one actually describes Iranian policy nowadays, the much more discreet pose of the previous Iranian president, President Khatami, the moderate, or this `Israel must be wiped off the map' language repeated by President Ahmadinejad?
Mr. PARSI: Well, thus far it is probably the former in the sense that the statement that the new president has made has no--at least not yet and probably will not be translated into actual policy. Iran is not as active against Israel as it was about 12 years ago when the peace process was starting. If you take a look at it, Iran even cautiously welcomed the (unintelligible) engagement. They gave quiet blessing to the Abdullah plan that the crown prince of Saudi Arabia...
SIEGEL: That he had proposed, yeah.
Mr. PARSI: ...proposed. So in practice, their policy has become much more `We will accept whatever the Palestinians accept.' Occasionally they make statements like this. It remains to be seen if the new policy will be one that is much harsher or if this is an aberration. I would guess it is an aberration because this president is very inexperienced and he has already, during these three months that he's been in power, made quite a few blunders, and this is just the latest one.
SIEGEL: Well, when you start hearing from not just the US and Israel but Britain and Hungary and Japan, the Vatican, when you start hearing very similar language, clearly there's a message being sent to Tehran, which is `This is absolutely out of bounds.' Is the Iranian president or are others in power in Tehran likely to take that message on board and alter their statements or behavior in response to this very, very vocal criticism that we're hearing?
Mr. PARSI: I think they already have, to some extent. First, the president has already lost a lot of power in Iran during his last three months. They made some changes in the political hierarchy and they granted some of the powers of the president to a body called the Expediency Council, which, incidentally is headed by the very same man, Rafsanjani, that the president beat in the elections in June. And already Iranian diplomats are going out to different cities, trying to do damage control, trying to reassure the world that this is a statement; it is not a policy indication. But the Iranians really have to start to understand that the world looks at statements as indications of policy and not just as empty words.
SIEGEL: Well, Trita Parsi, thank you very much for your time.
Mr. PARSI: Thank you for having me.
SIEGEL: Trita Parsi is at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, where he's writing a dissertation on Israeli-Iranian relations.
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