Interview w/ Iranian President Ahmadinejad

Monster

Part Of The Furniture
PF Member
It's rare that journalists get the opportunity to interview Iranian president Ahmadinejad, so I'm posting it here, in case someone's finding this useful or interesting. Today, ZDF (German public service TV channel) published the following video:

ZDF interview (video, German / Arabic(?) )

They waited 2 years to get the interview.
 
Yesterday evening, ZDF published another video, an interview with Ehud Barak, Israel's Minister of Defense, about Iran's nuclear program:

ZDF interview (video, German / English)
 
I wish I understood German.

If I find time for that, I'll post a transcript with a translation for both of the interviews. :)

Microsoft is currently working on a spoken speech translation service that might be integrated into Bing translator, but that'll still take some time, probably! ;)

I might be unable to translate some passages that are criminally relevant in Germany however, we have certain restrictions of freedom of speech regarding the WWII events, I'll circumscribe what he's saying in those passages if I happen to make a transcript. Ahmadinejad holds some views that are typical for people of that region. Basically, if I had to summarize in one sentence what he said, I'd say "We are peace-loving people in Iran, but if we are attacked, we are going to defend ourselves, like any country would."

He also mentioned that Iran tries to comply with IAEA but that IAEA would demand access to facilities that are protected under Iranian secrecy laws.

Iran is technically a democracy. However, clerics have a say in policy. Ahmadinejad used to be mayor of Teheran and he was allowed to go for presidency b/c of his conservative views. The president must be approved by the clergy. In recent elections, Ahmadinejad lost some ground to his competitors.

Ahmadinejad also blames the West for the current situation in Iran. He said the Shah was supported by the US and had created a terror regime that was overthrown by the Iranian people 30 years ago and that Iran's current government system would be far better than the old one, however Ahmadinejad feels that the West is punishing Iran for having created its own sovereign government, etc.
 
Here's a transcript and translation of the first 8 minutes of the interview. I hope I'll be able to do more! ;)

Q: On our way to the man that many people think is the most dangerous in the world -- Mahmud Ahmadinejad. For years, we tried to get this interview, before he was ready to confront the questions of Klaus Klever. The president of Iran, among other things, confronts us with statements that are criminally relevant in Germany. We document even Ahmadinejads statements about the ***** to make clear who the world community is dealing with.

Q: Good day, Mr. President. We have tried for 2 years to get an interview with you, now it is possible. Why now?

A: In the name of God, first I would like to greet all the people listening to this talk, the German people, and wish that people good days and a good year with good health and success. I'm very interested in talk with the media, especially German media, but the time, you know. Yes ... those appointments, they have to be made. As a president of a country you have to do many tasks. But I'm glad that I finally have this possibility and the time to talk to you.

Q: People in Europe, especially in Germany, look with great tension/suspense upon this region at the moment and fear that a war could be possible. Do you have message regarding this today?

A: Can you tell us -- danger of war, from which side and why?

Q: You know as good as I do that Israel threatens with an attack on Iran if the matter of the nuclear program cannot be solved any other way.

A: Do the Zionists show clarity and transparency in their nuclear issue? They have more than 250 nuclear warheads. Isn't that a problem, if they are so equipped?

Q: Israel does not belong to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), it doesn't have a contractual obligation to disclose it. Iran does have this obligation.

A: That means everyone who's not a member of the NPT is free to do whatever they want?

Q: It appears so.

A: That means if someone is a member of the NPT they may be disenfranchised? And the Zionists may threaten the country -- a member country of the IAEA? In principle, we are against this nuclear bomb. That is an inhuman weapon, from our point of view. And immoral. However, those that have such weapons are not in the situation to use them. The time of the atom bomb was brought to an end with the end of the 2nd World War, and it was simply buried. Were the Zionists able to do anything about the Hamas or the Hisbollah with their weapons? Or did these weapons save the Soviet Union? Or were those weapons able to save the USA country? Well, the atom bomb belongs to the previous century. Those that search for something like that have stayed behind. Stayed behind in history and mankind and humanity. And in policy. But my question is, why do Zionists simply have the right to threaten all other people, that is my question. Is there an unwritten law that elevates the Zionists above all international regulations and laws and decrees? I.e. to enforce their rights even toward the American people, even with violence? And do the same in Europe and in Iran? Kill, terrorize, destroy? Do they have that right? The question is, why do the European Nations support the Zionists blindly, that is the question. Why must this capital and money of the peoples of Europe be spent for the Zionists, and even for the production of weapons? Iran is no artificial country, it is not an occupied country, it is no regime of occupation, Iran had 7000, 10000 years of history and civilization, it is an autonomous country.

Q: Israel an artificial country?

A: Of course -- you know it, and the others know it too. How did this nation, this regime came to be? It was a colonialist planning, everyone knows that. Created by a lie. They have never been rulers of this country. They have invented a story with the title ***** and the damage, the cost for that, had to be paid by the Palestinians. While the Palestinians played no role at all, neither during the 2nd World War, nor in the events afterwards.

Q: Is that the reason that you once said "This country will vanish from the map?"

A: We said that occupation and crimes have to be stopped and prevented. Lies. Working against children and women, terrorism, these things, we are against these phenomena. (...)
 
German author Günter Grass (84, once winner of Nobel Prize for literature) recently published a poem called "What Needs to be Said" (Bing-translated from German) about the issue that caused quite a controversy. In the poem he states, among other things, that we would be guilty of helping Israel if Israel would attack Iran using nuclear weapons. Although he tries not to look antisemitic in the poem, many criticized that that would just be the case (Grass was born in 1927 and was 5 when Hitler seized power in mid-1933, and 17 in mid-1945 when the Nazi regime ended, so he was fully subjected to Nazi propaganda and fully experienced the aftermath of the post-WW-II period as a young adult).
 
ARD published an interview with Grass (Bing-translated from German * ), incl. video, in which he tries to clarify his point of view and that expressed in his poem.

( * = dang, I thought Bing translator was better than Google translator, but not so apparently )
 
Israel invoked a ban on Grass (Bing-translated from German, Google-translated) and declared him persona non grata, especially for his role in the Waffen SS (i.e. "weapon storm division" of the Nazis) when he was 17 (he claims in this interview above that he was drawn into the division during the late stages of WWII).
 
hello ! ah it's good to be back.

about Ahmadinejad. i don't even want to hear his voice. he is a child in adult body ! like seriously whats the point of nuclear bomb ? it's like when you try to take a toy from child and he get angry and never let that toy go.

as saudi, i hope usa/isreal/or my country to get rid of that childish iran goverment. even since 1980 they have been bugging us. and latest thing they tried to do is trying to Kidnapping the saudi diplomat in eqypt.

oh and i just remembered, did you know that the goverment give false info to the citizen ? i met iranian in the internet and he was like saudi arabia evil they attacked us 200 years go and rhaped everything and .. and .. and .. ( at first i though he was just trolling me but after i found out he was being serious i laughed so hard ) because saudi arabia exist 80-100 years ago. i don't think the royal family had time machine back then.
 
In the interview, Ahmadinejad said that people who want the atomic bomb are backward people.

Interesting insofar that it was the clergy in Iran that wanted the bomb IIRC ...

Iran would be a democracy sort of if the clergy wouldn't have a say in policy ... probably they needed the support of the clergy when they founded their system.

I wish those nations would undergo the same secularization as we had in Europe ...
 
Iran would be a democracy sort of if the clergy wouldn't have a say in policy ...

I need to correct myself there ... actually, the Supreme Leader of Iran is elected by the Assembly of Experts, which in turn is elected by the people every 8 years. So, despite the fact that the Assembly of Experts must all be clerics, technically, Iran is a democracy, no matter what our media tries to make us believe.

Limitation of freedom of speech per se is not a sign of dictatorship, because even in the Western world, limitation of free speech exists. Like, in the US, there is self-censorship of media, and in Germany for instance, there is also self-censorship, though to a lesser extent. Although censorship exists in dictatorships (like the GDR was, for instance), it is often preempted by self-censorship.

Even having the right to free speech in a constitution does not guarantee that that right can be exercised everywhere. In every society, there are limits on what people can do or say, even if just to avoid alienating one's peers.

The state of human rights in Iran might need to be improved, but it is questionable whether that justifies the demonization of that country that we often see in the media. One reason might certainly be that it is an Islamic republic which uses laws from the Sharia ... but Iran has an Islamic tradition that goes back 1361 years. When and if secularization can happen in Iran, only time will tell.
 
Worrying news, from the current summary list on heute.de (they cannot be linked to) :

Below, I'll post the current German version and a loose translation that I made myself:

German version:
21:15 Iranischer General droht Israel mit Krieg

Iran schließt einen Angriff auf Israel nicht aus. Sollte Iran sicher sein, dass Israel einen Angriff vorbereite, könnte es zu einem Präventivschlag kommen, sagte Brigadegeneral Amir Ali Hadschisadeh von den Revolutionsgarden. Dabei würden auch US-Stützpunkte in der Region attackiert. Jeglicher Angriff auf den Iran könnte einen dritten Weltkrieg auslösen, warnte der General. In einer Umfrage in Israel sprach sich derweil eine Mehrheit gegen einen Angriff aus. 80 Prozent der Befragten erwarteten in einem solchen Fall einen größeren Krieg im Nahen Osten.

English version:
9:15 PM Iran General Threatens Israel with War

Iran doesn't exclude the possibility of an attack on Israel. Should Iran be certain that Israel would prepare an attack, this could result in a preemptive strike, said brigade general Amir Ali Hadshisadeh from the Revolutionary Guards. This would also result in attacks on US bases in the region. Any attack on Iran could prompt a Third World War, warned the general. Meanwhile, in a poll in Israel, a majority opposed an attack [ on Iran ]. 80 percent of the polled people expected a major war in the Middle East in such a case.

EDIT: I found an article on BBC News Persia ( Google translated ) that has more information about this.

Persian quote:
سرتیپ امیرعلی حاجی‌زاده، فرمانده هوافضای سپاه پاسداران انقلاب اسلامی ایران، در مصاحبه شبکه العالم گفته است که در صورت حمله به ایران "هیچ کشور بی‌طرفی در منطقه وجود نخواهد داشت." او هشدار داده که درگیری با ایران می‌تواند "به جنگ جهانی سوم تبدیل شود."

Google-translator quote (probably inaccurately translated) :
Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards aerospace Islamic Revolution in Iran, al-Alam TV network said in an interview that the attack on Iran, "No country in the region, there is no neutrality." He warned that a conflict with Iran could "turn into World War III."
 
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