Ahmadinejad: The Exclusive E-mail Interview

Ahmadinejad: The Exclusive E-mail Interview

Early last autumn I began to spend some time on the website of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, http://www.president.ir/eng/. Ahmadinejad’s website offers the opposite of his repressive regime. Readers from around the globe can leave their comments in an open forum. A good percentage of these comments turn into hate mail. In early October I pressed the “contact” key on the website. In that first e-mail I wondered how the President could square free speech on his website with autocratic rule in his country. I did not receive a response.
     That didn’t stop my efforts to contact Ahmadinejad, or whomever manages his website. I don’t exactly remember the first time that I received a response from Ahmadinejad’s website. I do remember my exact response, a very surprising “What is this?”
     From those words a correspondence began. The correspondence turned into a series of interviews, all via e-mail. Without the consent of President Ahmadinejad, or whomever manages his website, I have decided to go public with that correspondence.

Q: There is so much disinformation about you, I hardly know where to begin. I suppose we should begin with some biographical information. When and where were you born?

Ahmadinejad: I was born on October 28, 1956 in a small village called Aradan, not far from Tehran.

Q: October 28? That’s a familiar date. Isn’t that the Shah’s birthdate?

Ahmadinejad: The Shah was born on the 26th.

Q: I see. Is it the Shah’s son’s birthdate then?

Ahmadinejad: The son was born on the 31st.

Q: It’s interesting that you know this, Mr. President. Why do you know this?

Ahmadinejad: I went to school during the reign of the Shah. This was information we had to know, or face the wrath of SAVAK.

Q: The Shah’s secret police force…

Ahmadinejad: Yes. SAVAK was known for its methods of torture. SAVAK liked to abuse the rectum. That was their target area. SAVAK was rectum-obsessed. In Tehran there was a joke. SAVAK had the most proctologists on staff. It was not funny.

(I’ve found no other mention of Ahmadinejad’s “joke.” For instance, Professor Bill James, America’s foremost Iranian expert, laughed at Ahmadinejad’s statement and called it “totally apocryphal. Iran doesn’t even have proctologists. Traumatologists, yes. Proctologists, no.” He was joking, I think.)

Q: You heard the joke in Tehran? I thought you grew up in Aradan?

Ahmadinejad: My father moved the family to southern Tehran in the 1960s. It was either that or starve to death. The Shah implemented what he called land reform under the White Revolution. Peasants who never owned their land suddenly received small plots. The Shah thought this was the way toward modernity. He thought the peasant class would kiss his feet. Typical of the Shah, he didn’t give up enough land. My father couldn’t sustain the family. So we moved to Tehran.

(The Ahmadinejads were not alone. In fact a mass exodus of peasants moved from a rural existence to city life. What began in the 1960s continues today. An estimated 60 percent of the country’s population lives in cities. Tehran, for instance, is a city of over 14 million people.)

Q: That must have been quite a switch.

Ahmadinejad: I found meaning in the Qur’an. I spent my childhood learning the suar and the Hadith.

(The Qur’an is broken down into 114 chapters. The Arabic word for chapter is sura, or plural suar. The hadith are the words and deeds attributed to the Prophet Muhammad and his progeny. Both the Qur’an and the Hadith are written in Arabic. According to Ahmadinejad, it is a heresy to read either in a translated language, like Ahmadinejad’s first language, Farsi.)

Q: In addition to the Qur’an, I also learned that you developed a fervency for Khomeini. Do you remember your first memory of him?

Ahmadinejad: Of course. I was 7-years-old. The year was 1342 [or 1963, as the West marks time]. Ayatollah Khomeini delivered a sermon against the Shah’s White Revolution. He said, “Oh Mr. Shah, dear Mr. Shah, abandon these improper acts. I don’t want people to offer thanks should your masters decide that you must leave. I don’t want you to become like your father. When America, the Soviet Union and England attacked us [during the Second World War] people were happy that Pahlavi [the Shah’s father] went. Listen to my advice, listen to the clergy’s advice, not to Kennedy, not to that of Israel. That would not help you. You wretched, miserable man, forty-five years of your life have passed. Isn’t it time for you to think and reflect a little, to ponder about where all this is leading you, to learn a lesson from the experience of your father? You don’t know whether the situation will change one day nor whether those who surround you will remain your friends. They are the friends of the dollar. They have no religion, no loyalty. They have flung all the responsibility around your neck. O miserable man!”

Q: Mr. President, are you quoting this from memory?

Ahmadinejad: Yes. I memorized all of Imam Khomeini’s speeches, from the earliest recorded to his very last. When he spoke these prophetic words, the Shah arrested him. Khomeini spent time in prison and house arrest, then he was exiled. For the 15 years of his exile we listened to his speeches, smuggled into Iran from Iraq. If SAVAK found you with those speeches, they would abuse your rectum.

Q: As part of the Shah’s White Revolution, he gave women the right to vote; he secularized schools; he gave the masses access to an education. Mr. President, where would you be without the Shah’s White Revolution? You would not have a university degree, or a Ph.D. You would not be president of your nation.

Ahmadinejad: What is important, Mr. Josepher? Personal gain? Power? These are accessories. What is important is Islam. What is important is that every project, every method, and every administrative mechanism be extracted from the heart of Islam. There is no room for personal or family profit. The Shah did not understand this.

Q: That sounds awfully sanctimonious. Do you consider yourself a radical?

Ahmadinejad: I believe in the trust between the ruler and the ruled. I believe in hard work. I believe in faith in God. I believe in Muhammad. I believe in Khomeini.

Q: From all accounts in the West, you seem to believe in Khomeini and his government of the 1980s as a more pure form of Islam, a government of God. And yet Khomeini covertly negotiated agreements, arms deals mainly, with both the Israelis and the Americans. In earlier times, in fact, before Khomeini came to power, he attended debates in Turkey with Orthodox Jews. According to Professor Bill James, Khomeini not only enjoyed the intellectualism of these debates but he enjoyed the Jewish company and he learned a little Hebrew on the side. Doesn’t this go against the so-called purity of the Khomeini revolution? Publicly he was calling for the end of Israel. Privately, he was cavorting with Jews and agreeing to arms deals.

Ahmadinejad: If we return to the culture of Khomeini’s Islam, we will see tomorrow what kind of heaven this place becomes.

Q: On a related topic, Mr. President, there is a story about you at the United Nations. While you gave a speech – and I’m quoting from the website of Radio Free Europe – you “felt a sacred halo of light around your head.” Is that an accurate quote?

Ahmadinejad: Yes. I felt that all of a sudden the atmosphere changed there and for 27-28 minutes the leaders in the hall did not blink.

Q: Did not blink? Are you talking figuratively?

Ahmadinejad: No. I watched the leaders respond to my speech. I’m not exaggerating when I say that they did not blink. They were astonished as if a hand held them there and made them sit. It had opened their eyes and ears for the message of the Islamic Republic.

Q: Mr. President, do you believe that you are in contact with the Mahdi? I’ve read that you made your cabinet sign a covenant with the Mahdi.

(Certain segments of Islam believe that the 12th Imam following the Prophet Muhammad, Muhammad al-Mahdi, is the ultimate savior of humanity. According to these believers, Muhammad al-Mahdi was hidden by God and will emerge to fulfill his destiny. Christianity has a similar view of Christ returning in the future to commence a 1000-year age of blessedness.)

Ahmadinejad: I believe that the principle of the Khomeini revolution is to pave the way for the reappearance of the 12th Imam. I believe that my duty as president is to create the atmosphere in which the Mahdi will return. Conversely, I believe that George Bush has betrayed the principles of his own Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Q: But, Mr. President, isn’t chaos the atmosphere in which the Mahdi will return?

Ahmadinejad: The failure of liberalism and Western-style democracy has led to the chaos of our age. We should look to the centrality of God in global aspirations. We have the teachings of the great prophets, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad. Why would we look for answers elsewhere?

Q: Let me try to understand your views on Judaism. You clearly believe Moses to be a great prophet and yet you talk about the total devastation of Israel. You’re on record as saying that Israel should be “wiped off the map.” You’re on record for comparing Israeli policies to those of Hitler’s. You’ve said that the “main solution” to the Middle East crisis is “the elimination of the Zionist regime.” How do you square your belief in the father of Judaism with your beliefs in destroying Judaism as it exists today?

Ahmadinejad: There are Jews and there are Zionists. We have nothing against the Jews. The Qur’an says that they are people of the Book and should be respected. We respect them. The Zionists, on the other hand, bring the black cloud of humiliation and shame to this world. Can anyone doubt that the Zionists created the conditions on which their Israel was founded?

Q: I’d argue that the Holocaust created those conditions. I’d argue that the Zionists then pushed for a nation-state.

Ahmadinejad: The Holocaust? Have you ever heard of the scholar Richard Krege? In December 2007 my country held a conference on the Holocaust. Dr. Krege offered irrefutable proof that Auschwitz was not the killing center the Zionist West makes it out to be. He did a study of the soil using the most advanced ground radar. He found no bodies at Auschwitz, no mass graves, no ashes, no bones. The land is pristine, unencumbered by external forces. According to Dr. Krege, Auschwitz was a labor camp, to support the factories nearby. The Zionists, though, have added another layer to the story.

Q: Another layer to the story? That’s an interesting way to put it. Let me just quote the commandant of Auschwitz, a man named Rudolf Höss. According to his own tally, 1.5 million Jews died at Auschwitz. I remind you, Mr. President, that Rudolf Höss was not exactly a Zionist.

Ahmadinejad: Yes, I’ve heard those statistics. The scholar Fredrick Töben, if I’m not mistaken, debunked Rudolf Höss’s statistics. According to Töben, Höss suffered from migraines. I don’t think he was physically capable of giving an accurate total.

(I sat there dumbfounded. I’d never heard anyone use migraines as an excuse for improper reporting.)

Ahmadinejad: Let me tell you something about the Holocaust. When you study it, you need to study the historians. You need to decipher who is the real deal and who is just another Zionist plant. In one group, there are historians parading around, thumping their chests, talking in circles, but never laying out actual facts. Martin Gilbert, Saul Friedländer, Raul Hillberg – these so-called scholars belong to this group. They make up their facts. They forge documentation. They support the racist, apartheid, Zionist entity.
     In the other group, you have scholars explaining the basic facts of the German camps and their purposes. Fredrick Töben and David Irving are two prime examples of real scholars. To get an accurate picture of the Holocaust, you must read their work. Have you? You wrote a book on the Holocaust and President Roosevelt and what could have been done for rescue. There’s a book that you must have read, The Myth of Rescue, by the great scholar William Rubinstein. What did you think?

(I was amazed. President Ahmadinejad, or whomever manages his website, had taken the time to review my writing credits. As for The Myth of Rescue, the so-called scholar William Rubinstein incited the denial side of Holocaust scholarship. In actuality, his scholarship was shoddy. He never actually entered an archive. He didn’t build his case on primary source material. He built his case on the backs of supremacists. He quotes David Duke, for God’s sake. His book is a total embarrassment to all but the fringe element.)

Q: I read it. I also read Deborah Lipstadt. I think her history is quite a bit more accurate.

Ahmadinejad: Deborah Lipstadt is a Mossad agent. Someday this will come out into the light. Her role is to push the Holocaust upon the world. Thank God for David Irving. But you can see what happened to him. Because he challenged her, the Zionist entity set out to destroy him. You can’t destroy the truth. The truth is stronger than agenda.
     Very few people understand the Second World War, who started it, the purpose of the camps, and the Allied atrocities. People are shown five hundred dead typhus victims, a crematorium with six ovens, and told six million Jews were gassed and burned there – and they believe it. They believe the gassing legend. The truth is that Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin wanted to destroy Germany and open up Europe, and the world, for Jewish Communism. Hitler was forced into Poland to stop Communist atrocities that killed nearly 60,000 German Nationals. That is the truth. That is why good men like David Irving, Frederick Töben and Richard Krege end up in jail. The Holocaust today is used to rationalize the wicked policies of the Zionist entity. The fact that the Zionist entity – with its five million Russian and Polish immigrants, with an average IQ of 90, and an aggressive behavior caused by years of inbreeding – the fact that the Zionist entity is sitting on 400-plus nuclear bombs as we speak – the Zionists are the real monsters we have to fear.

(I took a few days away from the interview. After listening to Ahmadinejad’s rant, I felt like I needed to spend an intensive period at the Holocaust museum in Washington or Yad Vashem in Israel to get back to historical reality. For the next topic I chose a more sanguine topic, nuclear proliferation.)

Q: In 2004, Iran suspended work on enriching uranium. In 2006, your country restarted the project. According to the New York Times, you recently visited the main enrichment complex at Natanz and stated that you were tripling the number of centrifuges. Theoretically, that would allow Iran to make bomb fuel for one to three nuclear weapons a year. Why is it so important for Iran to have a nuclear bomb?

Ahmadinejad: Let me ask you a question. If someone comes and explodes bombs around you, threatens your president, members of the administration, kills members of the Senate or Congress, how would you react? We are surrounded by a nuclear arsenal. And yet, we continue to show restraint. The IAEA’s [International Atomic Energy Agency] reports indicate that Iran’s activities are peaceful. There have been no deviations detected. Your own National Intelligence Estimate corroborates this fact. Iran is a poor nation. We need these technological achievements to transform Iran’s industry.

Q: And yet, two years ago, you boasted that Iran had joined the world’s “nuclear club.” Your words, Mr. President. That sounds a little different than your answer here. Why can’t Iran have enrichment facilities, small and heavily monitored, commissioned by the IAEA and the EU?

Ahmadinejad: In the year 2005 we received word that the Bush administration was conducting reconnaissance missions inside Iran. Those missions could only mean one eventuality, the destruction of our nuclear sites. We expected a commando raid, Mr. Josepher, or precision bombs. Under that pressure from your government, I made a threat. My threat reflected the way the world is being run and managed today. The world is not being run by the IAEA and the EU. It would be foolish to think it was.

Q: Why is Iran so obsessed with America?

Ahmadinejad: George Bush, from his isolated perch in Washington, attempts to determine the future of the Middle East. He trumped up Ariel Sharon. He trumps up the House of Saud [Saudi Arabia royal family] and the House of Sabah [Kuwait royal family]. He calls for a third world war. Meanwhile in Iraq, he makes threats and accusations. The Iraqi people do not like the Americans.

Q: You recently visited Iraq. Unlike President Bush, Dick Cheney, John McCain and other American officials, you arrived at the Baghdad Airport. Unlike George Bush, you drove by motorcade to your meeting with President Talabani in central Baghdad. That road was controlled by Sunni insurgents, seemingly your enemy. In your meeting with Talabani, you met outside the Green Zone. Did you choreograph your arrival to draw a contrast to the trips of George Bush? And did you fear for your safety?

Ahmadinejad: Unlike George Bush, Iran wants a stable, democratic Iraq. A stable, democratic Iraq will only strengthen the security of the area.

Q: Mr. President, that’s a little misleading. A democratic Iraq will be in the hands of the Shia majority, your coreligionists.

Ahmadinejad: You are showing your prejudices, Mr. Josepher, and your ignorance. The Shia population in Iraq is Arab, not Persian. The Shia population will fight for its home country, just as the Arab Iranians fought for Iran during the Iran-Iraq War.

Q: Mr. President, you were the first Iranian leader to visit Iraq since the Iran-Iraq War. Was that cathartic for you?

Ahmadinejad: By the grace of God, Iran and Iraq have agreed to cement their brotherly relations. We begin a new chapter. The levels of trust are very high.

Q: That all sounds nice but I’m asking for your own personal reflections. I’ve read that you joined the Revolutionary Guard and served in the war. I’m sure that had an effect on you, even if you weren’t a frontline soldier. As a politician, for instance, you’ve proposed turning municipal spaces in Tehran – parks and squares – into graveyards for fallen soldiers. I’ve also read that you visit Behesht-e Zahra every Friday.

(Behesht means paradise in Persian. Zahra means the shining one. The Prophet Muhammad’s daughter, Fatimah, was also known as Fatimah Zahra. The Behesht-e Zahra is Iran’s largest cemetery, holding over 200,000 bodies.
     Every nation has a cemetery for its war dead. Behesht-e Zahra inters its war dead unlike any other. There are 70,000 interred soldiers. Each of them has a glass box, raised on stilts, to commemorate the soldier’s life. In each glass box there are personal remembrances – pictures, clothes, letters, favorite books. The glass boxes are kept Windex clean. Family members (women) routinely tend to these graves. It’s as if the mothers must clean their sons’ rooms. On Fridays, the Muslim holy day, families go to the cemetery to picnic with their dead.)

Ahmadinejad: It is true. I visit every Friday. I sit with a family. This is my way of honoring our martyrs. I learn about them. Let me tell you about Muhammad Ali. He was a handsome boy. He died a martyr’s death, at the hands of Saddam’s army. Saddam’s army laid mines throughout their fortified positions. Muhammad Ali was one of the brave soldiers whose job it was to detect the mines.

Q: How did he do that?

Ahmadinejad: By walking over them.

Q: By walking over them? In other words, his weight touched off the mines? He literally walked to his death?

Ahmadinejad: He carried with him a key to unlock the door to heaven. There were delights waiting for him, and the eximious presence of God.

Author’s note: Due to space, this interview has been divided into two parts. Please come back to this space on Friday, April 18, for the conclusion of my interview with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or whomever manages his website.
     This interview concludes my five-part series on the tragedy of American-Iranian relations. If you are interested in earlier installments, including an interview with America’s foremost Iranian expert, Professor Bill James, and a reflection on America’s first look at Khomeini back in 1979, please click on the link “More articles by Brian Josepher.” You will see the articles to the right.

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The Gonzo Journalism of Brian Josepher

Ahmadinejad: The Exclusive E-mail Interview