(Western
politician's response: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice dismissed the
letter as "offering nothing new" and the White House said there would
be no formal written reply.)
(Western
intellectual's response: Stokes, Karina, Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush opens
dialogue in Middle Eastern rhetorical style, Journal of Language and Politics,
Volume 9, Number 1, 2010, pp. 96-114(19) - Abstract: "Understanding how
Middle Eastern rhetoric differs from Western communication can aid in
deciphering diplomatic correspondence like the 2006 letter from President
Ahmadinejad of Iran. Failure to understand such communications and respond
appropriately may result in missed opportunities to avert hostilities or
establish effective rapport with other nations. Success in grasping the intent
of Iran's diplomatic overture can provide a basis for creating a response that
expresses American sentiments in a way that can be seen as intelligent and
appropriate by Middle Eastern recipients. Such correspondence could entail
establishing a respectable ethos, arranging content as expected, and
emphasizing common values. Knowledge of the Middle Eastern rhetorical tradition
can inform a viable understanding for diplomatic correspondence.")
(My
question: are Western politicians and intellectuals out of their minds? To miss
such an opportunity to speak, not only to the Iranian President, but to the
Iranian people as well, who may need some encouragement?)
Mr
President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad
I'm
grateful for your letter and the questions you ask. They are good questions,
and the answers to them are of the greatest importance. Fortunately, the
answers to these questions are also very easy to find. What is very
unfortunate, though, is that you cannot find these answers by yourself. Because
if you were able to find these answers by yourself, the central question you
ask in your letter - "how long must the people of the world pay for the
incorrect decisions of some rulers?" - would never have become so
pressing!
Iraq and
WMD
You ask
how I can justify the occupation of Iraq (and all the terrible consequences, as
well as the heavy burden on our Treasury) "because of the possibility of
the existence of WMD" in that country. The answer is simple: Iraq is not
simply a "country", it is a country with a people and a government;
and what you call "the possibility of the existence of WMD" is not
simply a "possibility", it is the result of an act of the Iraqi
government for which that government is responsible. The Iraqi government could
have cooperated with us in order to prove that they had no intention to produce
or to possess WMD, in other words, that there was no "possibility of the
existence of WMD" in their country.
But the
Iraqi government refused to do so. It is only then that I had to ask myself the
question: if the Iraqi government is not prepared to cooperate with us and to
show their good faith, how great is the threat posed by that government, which
is possibly intent on acquiring WMD? And how representative is that government
of the Iraqi people, of whom I naturally assume that they want to live in peace
with the rest of the world? Because if that assumption is correct, and I
believe it to be correct, an Iraqi government that is representative of the
Iraqi people would have cooperated with us and shown their good faith.
It is
only logical that I had to come to the conclusion that the Iraqi government,
which refused to cooperate and to prove that they were not intent on acquiring
WMD, was not representative of the Iraqi people and was therefore a threat to
the rest of the world (and indirectly to the Iraqi people itself). I certainly
wish I could have concluded otherwise. But for that the premises would have
needed to be different. Not the logic, as you seem to suggest.
Western
oppression and cooperation
The
question isn't in your letter, but I can hear you ask: why should the Iraqi
government, or any other government, have to cooperate with us and show their
good faith, when we ask for it? Aren't they independent?
I believe
that the question to ask rather is: why should they NOT cooperate with us and
show their good faith? Even when they are independent?
Because
asking the first question is nothing else but a perverse trick to make a
legitimate request for cooperation appear as an illegitimate request for
submission. In other words, it is an act of bad faith disguising itself as an
act of proud resistance against alleged oppression. Struggle against oppression
may be a religious duty for the faithful. But I'm sorry to say, jihad against
Western oppression construed in such a fraudulent manner is plainly a scam
intended to mislead the faithful. And as you point out correctly yourself,
"telling lies is reprehensible in any culture: people do not like to be
lied to", not in Iran, not anywhere else.
Israel
and the Palestinians
You ask
how one can justify the "establishment of a new country with a new
people" where it hadn't existed before, and especially the cost at which
it was established. Again, the answer is simple: time doesn't stand still, and
the Jewish people, which wasn't "new" as you say, wished to establish
a Jewish state in Israel at that time.
The maps
may be difficult to find, but there are other sources that indicate that the
old Jewish people once had a state or at least a country in Israel. You also
correctly assume that the unbelievable murder of a very large number of Jewish
people is not only true, but a contributing factor to this wish of the
remaining Jewish people to establish a Jewish state in Israel (six million is
indeed no more than a rough estimate, but if it turned out that the exact count
was only 5,223,119, the murder would be just as unforgivable). Now, when the
Jewish people and their representatives had this understandable wish to
establish a Jewish state in Israel, they were very conscious of the fact that
the land wasn't just there for them to take, but that the creation of a Jewish
state in Israel had to proceed by negotiated agreement with the people already
living in the land.
What
happened then goes a long way to explain not only why I continue to support the
Jewish State of Israel, but especially why the "cost" at which it was
established was so high (and continues to be high). It is the simple fact that
the Arab rulers who claimed to be representatives of the people living in the
land (a claim that was obviously untrue for at least some of the Jewish and
Christian people who were also living in the land) refused to cooperate and to
negotiate an agreement (just as Saddam Hussein refused to cooperate and to
prove his good faith). They assumed that they had a right proven beyond any
doubt to the land in question, and thereby a right to simply reject altogether
the wish of the Jewish people to establish a Jewish state in Israel. However,
this right to reject the wish of the Jewish people cannot be proven any better
than the right of the Jewish people to establish a Jewish state in Israel
(there are also no maps of a Palestinian state in that land at that time). Which
is to say that the refusal by the Arab rulers to cooperate and to negotiate an
agreement was not only a very unfriendly act, it was also unlawful before God,
who wants us to find ways to coexist and to live in peace in this only world he
gave us.
It is
true, the representatives of the Jewish people, when confronted with the
refusal by the Arab rulers to negotiate, did not simply abandon their wish to
create a Jewish state in Israel. They went ahead and created the Jewish State
of Israel without an agreement. But you must also acknowledge that they didn't
simply take all the land, they just took that part of the land on which they
thought that an agreement could have been reached, so that an agreement would
still be possible after the fact, an agreement on how to share the land and
establish two states, a Jewish state and a Palestinian state, that could
prosper together in peace on that same land. They also didn't simply displace,
let alone massacre, the Arab population in their new state, although that
population behaved in a rather hostile way following the example of the Arab
rulers.
The real
and deplorable "cost" of establishing the Jewish State of Israel thus
didn't simply occur in "the process", it only occurred when the Arab
rulers, in defense of their unproven right to reject negotiations with the
Jewish people, decided to make war against the new Jewish State of Israel in
order to destroy it. And that was definitely an unlawful and criminal
"phenomenon", to use a word you seem to like a lot. A criminal
"phenomenon" for which both the Jewish people and the Palestinian
people pay the price until today, and unfortunately will continue to pay the price as long as the
Arab (and Persian, I might add) perpetrators of that criminal
"phenomenon" hold on to their hatred of the Jewish State of Israel.
The
people and its rulers
The
central question you ask - "how long must the people of the world pay for
the incorrect decisions of some rulers?" - has thus a very simple answer:
as long as there are rulers who make incorrect decisions! And you cannot simply
assume that the rulers making the incorrect decisions are always the others,
and never you yourself! Did that simple reflection ever cross your mind? Did
you ever ask yourself how you could do yourself a lot of good for the people of
the world paying the price for incorrect decisions? Because if you do not ask
yourself that question, the day will come when God will ask you why you never
did.
I for
myself am certainly afraid of that day of reckoning. Not because I haven't
asked myself the question. But because I cannot know for certain that I've
always found the right answer. I said before that the answers I can give to
your questions are easy to find. This is only true insofar that it is easy to
find answers that are not completely wrong or "incorrect", to use
your words. But it is very possible that the decisions I've made were not
always the best that I could have made. I only wish, when taking these
decisions, that I could meet more often with leaders who try hard as well to
find the right answers, and less often with leaders who simply content
themselves with asking self-righteous questions of others, and of me in
particular.
May God
have mercy on our souls.
Yours
sincerely,
POTUS.
PS: I
almost forgot. On the question of Iranian nuclear science: you can deduce from
my answers to your other questions that I do not condemn nuclear science as
such; it is the good faith of yourself and of other leaders of the Islamic
Republic of Iran, when it comes to not using that science to develop a nuclear
weapons capability, that I ask to be demonstrated. Again, just as it was for
Saddam Hussein, it is easy for you to prove your good faith, as there are so
many ways to do that. Calling upon the Iranian people to shed their blood as
martyrs for the Islamic revolution isn't one of them, though. This whole
"phenomenon" of bloody martyrdom, which was started by the ayatollah
Khomeini, but of which you and ayatollah Khamenei also seem to be very fond,
strikes me as wholly incompatible with your concern for "the people of the
world paying the price for the incorrect decisions of some rulers".
Because it suggests that the Islamic rulers of Iran, including yourself, act
upon the principle that the heavier the price they make the people of the world
pay for their incorrect decisions, the more glorious these incorrect decisions
become in the eye of God! Therefore I must warn you: I do not believe that this
repulsive "phenomenon" can be "rationalised or explained"
by your faith in the one and only God. I take it to be a clear sign of your
godforsaken madness!
PPS: I
can just as well add, so as to spare you the trouble of writing me another
letter full of questions, that there is always a way out of this godforsaken
madness: it is the way of repentance. I pray, may you find it soon.
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