Knockout Fight of the Year! Bollinger vs. Ahmadinejad

Ahmadinejad didn't say anything new as far as I could tell. University President Lee Bollinger's remarks (click here for the full text) at Columbia were far more interesting.

Certainly, there was nothing wrong with Bollinger confronting Ahmadinejad to his face about his and Iran's various reckless words and actions that have helped make the world a more dangerous place. Bollinger was on shakier ground in his black-and-white depiction of the struggles taking place in the Middle East. I was surprised, however, that Bollinger felt the need to insult Ahmadinejad so personally. That sounded a little more like a Friday sermon in Tehran than a discourse in the American academy.

Bollinger opened with the words: "Let's then be clear at the beginning: Mr. President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator."

He closed with the words: "Today, I feel all the weight of the modern civlized world yearning to express the revulsion at what you stand for."

Memo to Bollinger:

Ahmadinejad is an elected president; even if the balloting was cooked, as many Iranians feel, he had the genuine support of a huge number of Iranians. If there is a dictator in Iran, it is the un-elected heir to Khomeini who is far more powerful, Supreme Leader Ayatullah Ali Khamenei. Khamenei's office derives legitimacy for many Iranians--including many of his sharpest critics-- from the fact that the Islamic Republic he heads came into being through a genuine, popular revolution.

For a scholar, Bollinger acts simplistically in denouncing what Ahmadinejad stands for. He's made reckless, perhaps ignorant statements about Israel and Jews. But to many Iranians, he stands for something else: national pride, empowering the poor and other things. Notwithstanding suspicions about Iran's nuclear intentions, Ahmadinejad is on record strongly rejecting the development of nuclear weapons. Bollinger and many others may think that's a lie. But it would be more useful to spar with Ahmadinejad on this and other issues than spew denunciations.

I might have been a tad less sanctimonious. Yes, Americans have alot of legitimate complaints about Iran's crimes. Many of the points Bollinger raised were correct and put to Ahmadinejad eloquently. Yet, Bollinger speaks as if he is unaware that his own government overthrew an Iranian prime minister, installed and supported for three decades a brutally repressive shah and then backed the tyrant Saddam Hussein when Iraq was using WMD against Khomeini's Iran.

Judging from Bollinger's impulse to land a knock-out punch, perhaps he served to prove his critics right: he made a mistake to allow Ahmadinejad into the ring.

--By Scott MacLeod/Cairo