President Ahmadinejad: We Accept Your Challenge!

Confident in victory that his confrontational course is the right one, Ahmadinejad has issued a clear challenge to Washington:

From now on we will take you to trial at every international forum.

Fair enough. Does Washington, where arrogance from the merest bureaucratic first-line manager all the way to where that proverbial buck stops is a way of life, have the maturity to respond to this in a professional manner?

Ahmadinejad went on to ask:

How is it possible that those who have blood on their hands are now talking about human rights and believe that they can harm the Islamic system with their hollow and satanic statements and their propaganda stunts against Iran’s clean and humane system?

The biased and self-serving phraseology notwithstanding, this seems a fair question, given that it refers to a nation that has yet to denounce the pernicious Bush-Cheney concept of “preventive war,” that pretends it cannot see the barbaric concentration camp Israel has created out of Gaza with the use of American arms, and where the mass media still proudly describe the destruction of Fallujah as a “victory.”

The truth is that the international misdeeds of Washington in recent years have vastly surpassed even the allegations by Iran’s Western enemies of international Iranian misdeeds. The truth is that every country should be “taking to trial at every international forum” the world’s last remaining superpower. It would be good for the health of that superpower and good for the safety of us all.

An unrestrained superpower and a bunch of lackeys is no way to develop a healthy international political system. We have all seen how rapidly the behavior of Washington officials, not to mention of the boys in uniform sent to do its bidding, declines when everything is going their way. America’s wise forefathers saw fit to create a government based on a system of checks and balances for a reason.

What goes for the U.S. goes for the international political system. Even if American behavior were perfect, simply because of the overwhelmingly excessive military power possessed by the American superpower, the rest of the world should constantly be taking it to task. I gratefully thank Ahmadinejad for so moderately suggesting that he will do so only at “every international forum,” a phrase suggesting that he (unlike Bush or Cheney) has finally accepted the value and legitimacy of international law and will work within its confines. Were this to turn out to be true and were Washington to develop the maturity to respond in kind—by challenging the Iranian regime also in international fora (rather than via threats, interference, funding of terrorists) to meet the highest standards of behavior--then the world would become a far better place, and the battle would be the greatest show on earth.

If Mahmoud Ahmadinejad thinks he is man enough to present to the global community a sustained and persuasive critique of America’s international behavior, I, for one, have no fear of that challenge. What I fear is the possibility that America’s politicians will respond by throwing another temper tantrum.