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Ahmadinejad's Relationship with Reality Is Beyond Repair

[Times-UK] Editorial - An advantage of autocracy, from the point of view of the autocrat, is his freedom to assert his honesty and not care whether or not he is believed. A far greater advantage of free speech is the ability to test such assertions against real evidence. On his theatrical - and ultimately illuminating - visit to America, Mr. Ahmadinejad has provided evidence of nothing so much as sheer mendacity. Mr. Ahmadinejad is no more truthful on his nuclear plans than on homosexuality, women's rights or the Holocaust, which he has called a myth. Even his claim to have a right to develop peaceful nuclear reactors is false: under the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which Iran has signed, it has forfeited that right by building the plant for highly enriched uranium production that has triggered two sets of UN sanctions in the past year. Iran has no compelling economic need for civilian nuclear reactors. Power generation is not the purpose of the cascade of 3,000 uranium centrifuges being built at Natanz. Acquiring nuclear weapons is a central aim of Mr. Ahmadinejad's blinkered brand of Persian nationalism, which aims to assert influence far beyond Iran's borders.
2007-09-26 01:00:00
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