war within a breath

An Olive Branch in the Shape of a Wreath

09.21.07 - 01:07pm

Interpreting the Iranian president’s request to lay a wreath at the site of the World Trade Centre terror attacks is a complex undertaking but interpreting the hysterical reaction to it is all too easy - and alarming.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had asked for permission to visit the site, often known as Ground Zero, on Sunday, during his visit to the United States to address the General Assembly of the United Nations. The request has been turned down so far by the New York City Police, allegedly for security reasons, but the response from US politicians has been vigorously negative.

A report by CBS details part of an interview by its journalist Scott Pelley with the Iranian president, containing the following extraordinary exchange regarding the controversy:

“Sir, what were you thinking? The World Trade Center site is the most sensitive place in the American heart, and you must have known that visiting there would be insulting to many, many Americans,” Pelley says.

“Why should it be insulting?” Ahmadinejad asks.

“Well, sir, you’re the head of government of an Islamist state that the United States government says is a major exporter of terrorism around the world,” Pelley replies.

Ahmadinejad says: “Well, I wouldn’t say that what American government says is a– is the prerequisite here. Something happened there which led to other events. Many innocent people were killed there. Some of those people were American citizens obviously. We obviously are very much against any terrorist action and any killing. And also we are very much against any plots to sow the seeds of discord among nations. Usually you go to these sites to pay your respects. And– also to perhaps to air your views about the root causes of such incidents. I think that when I do that, I will be paying, as I said earlier, my respect to the American nation.”

“But the American people, sir, believe that your country is a terrorist nation, exporting terrorism in the world,” Pelley says. “You must have known that visiting the World Trade Center site would infuriate many Americans.”

“Well, I’m amazed. How can you speak for the whole of the American nation?” Ahmadinejad says. “You are representing a media and you’re a reporter. The American nation is made up of 300 million people. There are different points of view over there.”

It is extraordinary enough that a CBS journalist should parrot the government line as if it is naturally the opinion of a monolithic block, “the American people”, the incident being rather reminiscent of the North Korean media or Pravda during the Soviet era.

But from the exchange I detect an intimation that Ahmadinejad, with his request to lay a wreath at the World Trade Centre site and with this interview, is trying to appeal past the government and media portrayal of his nation directly to the American public.

Perhaps he recognises that if future confrontation is to be avoided it will be via American public opinion putting a brake on the Bush administration and an olive branch in the shape of a wreath to America’s dead may generate sympathy.

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Zalmay Khalilzad, has condemned what he calls Iran’s attempt to use the site for a “photo op”.

However, if it is a photo opportunity then it is surely a telling one and we should bear in mind how many of the public activities of world leaders could be interpreted in just such a manner without that necessarily reflecting on their significance in other respects. Ahmadinejad is undoubtedly making a political and diplomatic calculation here but that calculation will necessarily include a consideration of how such a gesture as laying a wreath at Ground Zero will play at home amongst the Iranian people.

When he says that many innocent people were killed there and that Iran is “very much against any terrorist action and any killing” and against “any plots to sow the seeds of discord among nations” he must believe that this is something large numbers of people in Iran will accept.

But the establishment zeitgeist, in Britain almost as much as in the United States, is of an evil Iran bent on terror and destruction. And any consideration that half way across the world in Iran there may be millions of normal, working people who share with us the kind of basic values expressed in their president’s statement about the attacks of 2001, would interfere with that picture and may serve to provoke opposition to war.

Thus a request to publicly, in full view of the world’s media, signal respect for those Americans killed on September 11 must be greeted with hysteria and condemned as an “insult”.

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