The City of Tehran, Iran, is one of Asia’s largest cities and, with a population of 8,429,807, the 21st largest city in the world.
Situated at the foot of the expansive Alborz Mountains, the city is often covered with snow during the winter and features some of the world’s premier ski resorts, which are open year round.
A quick Google search of the city reveals surprising images that contradict everything we’ve ever been told about Iran’s capitol and the people who live there.
You can find fashionable women shopping in swanky shops, futuristic skyscrapers pictured against the snow-capped mountain backdrop, tree-lined streets that look imported from Beverly Hills, and a metro system that makes our light-rail look like a BRIO train set.
This is not the media’s Iran; it is a city in a country that looks ready to westernize. The infrastructure is there, the fashion is there, the technology is there.
Unfortunately, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is there too.
Ahmadinejad, the baby-faced Iranian president who won power in 2005, has continually forced his country into the limelight for all the wrong reasons. He’s maintained exposure because of persistence with nuclear ambitions and oft-offensive sound bites.
He has spewed a continuous stream of bigoted nonsense on a variety of subjects, including the rights of women and homosexuals, Israel and the Holocaust.
In an awkward 2006 interview with MSNBC’s Brian Williams, Ahmadinejad skillfully sidesteps a question about how he can refute the Holocaust and lectures Williams on the importance of doing research and asks why Jews should be so touchy when discussing the Holocaust.
Perhaps, you hope, the translator will start humorously mistranslating Ahmadinejad’s words so that it appears he’s talking about how cute his cat is when she plays with a ball of string.
Or, maybe Williams, in a fit of boredom or rage will pull of his own shoe and beat himself on the head with it.
Even better, what if Ahmadinejad shape-shifted into one of the crab-people from Southpark and wreaked havoc on the MSNBC set?
After such an awful stage presence in 2006, Ahmadinejad was somehow able to up the ante on his own stupidity last Thursday when addressing the U.N. General Assembly in New York City.
With an opportunity to prove that Iran was in fact interested in diplomacy with the U.S., Ahmadinejad decided instead to explain why capitalism was disintegrating.
According to his expert opinion, the disintegration of capitalism was caused by the Sept. 11 attacks, the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land and the pressure on Iran’s nuclear program.
Some economists may think negatively of capitalism, but I doubt any of them would blame capitalism’s recent sputtering on these.
Most everyone in the U.N. is trying to figure out how the Sept. 11 attacks signaled the end of capitalism.
Thankfully, and I hope you heard about this, Brian Williams, the delegations of at least 33 nations, including the U.S. and the European Union, walked out when Ahmadinejad gave various theories of who caused the attacks.
Ahmadinejad could have instead argued his case for the nuclear program. He could have presented evidence that Iran was interested in enriching Uranium for peaceful reasons.
How great would it have been for him to quell the angst wafting from the West concerning Iran and its intentions?
Alas, it appears President Ahmadinejad was more interested in covering the U.N. lectern with his word-vomit and sharing stale chunks of anti-Israel sentiment while America bashing.
Until Ahmadinejad learns to control his urges, the snow-capped peaks and fancy architecture of Tehran will have to live solely on Google images and out of the public opinion.
Spill your thoughts to Ben at bnegley@asu.edu
