Ahmadinejad short and stout

Yes, it’s all about the Iranian President these days. The US is finding more evidence that we’re already at war with Iran while their head of state can’t summon the courage to admit it;

Military spokesman Rear Adm. Mark Fox said U.S. troops were continuing to find Iranian-supplied weaponry including the Misagh 1, a portable surface-to-air missile that uses an infrared guidance system.

Other advanced Iranian weaponry found in Iraq includes the RPG-29 rocket-propelled grenade, 240 mm rockets and armor-piercing roadside bombs known as explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, Fox said.

Iran has denied U.S. allegations that it is smuggling weapons to Shiite militias in Iraq, a denial that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reiterated in an interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes” aired Sunday.

“We don’t need to do that. We are very much opposed to war and insecurity,” said Ahmadinejad, who arrived in New York Sunday to attend the U.N. General Assembly. “The insecurity in Iraq is detrimental to our interests.”

We were at war with bin Laden for a decade before anyone recognized it, too. Kat-Missouri at Ace of Spades thinks this is the final confrontation that Ahmadinejad has been hoping for. Boker Tov, Boulder! says NYT banishes Ahmadinejad to the Metro section and quotes Ahmadinejad hatin’ in his own words.

Meantime, the Iranians have shut down the border between Iran and the Kurds;

Iran closed major border crossings with northern Iraq on Monday to protest the U.S. detention of an Iranian official the military accused of weapons smuggling, a Kurdish official said.

At least four border gates have been closed and one remains open, the governor of the Kurdish province of Sulaimaniyah, Dana Ahmed Majeed, told The Associated Press. The move threatens the economy of Iraq’s northern region – one of the country’s few success stories.

In Tehran, the public relations department in Iran’s Interior Ministry said no decision had been taken to shut the border.

But Kurdish authorities said the Iranians began shutting down the crossing points late Sunday near the border towns of Banjiwin, Haj Omran, Halabja and Khanaqin.

The closings came four days after U.S. troops arrested an Iranian official during a raid on a hotel in Sulaimaniyah, 160 miles northeast of Baghdad.

The Iranians are so untrustworthy that they can’t even admit when they close the border – something people can see with their own eyes.

Yesterday I linked up a Columbia students’ plea for Ahmadinejad to speak, but I wonder how those same students feel about the Iranian government closing down an Iranian website critical of the little fella?

Iran’s judiciary has sealed off the offices of a popular news Web site critical of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s policies after journalists continued to update it despite official filtering, the Web site said.

Rights groups and diplomats say there is a broad crackdown on dissenting voices in the Islamic state, which is under growing Western pressure over its disputed nuclear programme. The authorities deny such moves, saying they allow free speech.

Blocking access to Baztab.com earlier this year was seen as part of the clampdown. Updates to the Web site, which is published in English and Farsi, were still available to Internet users outside Iran until the offices were sealed.

The last item on the Web site carried the headline: “The wish of the presidential office was realised and Baztab’s offices were sealed off”. The site, when accessed via a link outside Iran, indicated it was last updated on Sept. 23

Kamangir reports more on Baztab and adds;

 It is quite hillarious to remember Ahmadinejad’s claim that “Complete freedom exists in Iran and all individuals and groups can express their ideas

He claims a right to speak out against our president and our policies in our own country, but denies his own people the right to do the same. And just as with Chavez, the American left defends behavior from the Iranian government that would send them into hyperdrive if it happened to them here.

The Washington Times editorial board suggests questions that Columbia University students should ask the Iranian President;

 But in the event that anyone at Columbia seriously decides to challenge him, it would be nice to ask him things like: Why have you called the Holocaust a “myth” and a “sheer historic lie?” Why did you invite “scholars” like former Ku Klux Klan Imperial Wizard David Duke to Iran last year for a Holocaust-denial conference? A senior adviser to you and Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has talked about a strategy for the destruction of Anglo-Saxon civilization “by means of our suicide operations or by means of missiles.” Is this part of your government’s message of “peace?”

Of course, I won’t be holding my breath waiting for the answers – nor will I wait for anyone allowed into the “forum” to summon the testicular fortitude to ask the questions. The Wall Street Journal even reports that some low-profile Democrats are miffed at Columbia University offering the forum to the little terrorist;

But critics like Christine Quinn, Democratic speaker of the New York City Council, counter that the prestige of the institution offers the Iranian leader too high a perch. “He can say whatever he wants on any street corner — but should not be given center stage at one of New York’s most prestigious centers of higher education,” Ms. Quinn wrote Mr. Bollinger in a letter last week.

Some lawmakers bemoan that Mr. Ahmadinejad and his delegation were even granted a visa to come to New York, a step the U.S., as host to the U.N., is essentially obliged to take.

And the Republican New York Speaker of the Assembly threatened to cut off Columbia from the state teat;

In an interview with The New York Sun, the speaker of the Assembly, Sheldon Silver, said lawmakers, outraged over Columbia’s insistence on allowing the Iranian president to speak at its World Leaders Forum, would consider reducing capital aid and other financial assistance to the school.

Israel Matzav responds to the CU Alumni Association. Judith at Kesher Talk has the scivvy on today’s protests and a couple of photos of some of Ahmadinejad’s supporters here. Gateway Pundit reports that anti-Ahmadinejad ads don’t get the same discount rate at the NY Times as anti-Petraeus ads.

Well, I’ll be in front of the National Press Club this morning where there’s supposed to be a protest against Ahmadinejad’s tele-luncheon (I’m guessing it’ll be in the club’s First Amendment Room on the top floor – if that’s not enough irony for you). The NPC website says their conference will start at noon- Ahmadinejad will speak for a half hour and take 45 minutes of questions from the assemblage. I can only imagine what those questions will be. Sort of like the 60 Minutes interview last night (I couldn’t watch the interview – the Giants were busy holding back the ‘Skins at the two yard line);

Wallace tried to ask him about Hezbollah’s use of missiles, rockets furnished by Iran, but he wanted to talk about Israel’s attacks with American bombs.

“The laser-guided bombs that have been given to the Zionists and they’re targeting the shelter of defenseless children and women,” the president said.

“Who supports Hezbollah?” Wallace asked. “Who has given Hezbollah hundreds of millions of dollars for years? Who has given Hezbollah Iranian-made missiles and rockets that is making — that are making all kinds …” he continued as he was interrupted.

“Are you the representative of the Zionist regime? Or a journalist?” Ahmadinejad asked Wallace.

“I’m a journalist. I am a journalist,” Wallace replied.

“This is not journalism, sir. Hezbollah is a popular organization in Lebanon, and they are defending their land,” the president said. “They are defending their own houses. And, according to the charter of the United Nations, every person has the right to defend his house.

“What I’m saying is that the killing of innocents is reprehensible. And making this — the displacement of people and making them refugees, again, is reprehensible,”

Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs has more on the ’60 Minutes’ interview. 

Because I’m not a member of the NPC nor an “accedited” member of the press, I’ll just be standing on the corner taking pictures and reporting back to ya’all. Ya know, like the accedited media should be doing. I expect I should have pictures up by about 2PM today if anyone is interested.

Category: Foreign Policy, Politics, Society, Terror War