SIEFF: Obsession with Israel

• Article
• Comments ()
• Click-2-Listen

By Martin Sieff

OP-ED

Amid all the national security challenges facing the U.S. government, one of the most important has to be assessing the character of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Kasra Naji, a highly experienced and respected Iranian journalist, has made a welcome start with this new biography of the firebrand leader of the Islamic Republic. Yet it must be said that for all the book's undoubted thoroughness, it is frustratingly silent on the very issues where one craves the most illumination - especially on whether Mr. Ahmadinejad would actually use a thermonuclear weapon if he ever got his hands on one.

Mr. Naji certainly brings impressive strengths to his task. He is fluent in Persian and is a veteran foreign correspondent who has worked for CNN, the Los Angeles Times and the Guardian. His background as a political correspondent is reflected in "Ahmadinejad: The Secret History of Iran's Radical Leader." It is impressively detailed on recent Iranian domestic politics and cites a great number of individually minor but cumulatively significant maneuvers, micro-managed power struggles and intrigues in Tehran. The prose is chewy and unimaginative however and there is none of the piercing insight that, for example, one found in "The Spirit of Allah: Khomeini and the Islamic Revolution" - Amir Taheri's classic 1986 biography of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Instead, one is often left with the unfortunate feeling that Mr. Naji has drowned in his own details and cannot see the forest for the trees. One would be happy to forego a lot less of the often tedious detail on political maneuvers in Tehran and get much more from the author on how he assesses the certainly remarkable and arguably unique mind-set of his subject. This is, after all, the leader of a great, historic nation of 70 million people who, as Mr. Naji notes, genuinely believes he will personally hand over the reins of office to the 12th imam of Shi'ite Islam who disappeared down a well in the Iraqi city of Karbala over a millennium ago.

It really does not do to simply say that Mr. Ahmadinejad is determined to acquire nuclear weapons for his country in order to increase his country's influence in the Persian Gulf region. He could have done that a lot more easily had he not issued his bloodcurdling threats to wipe Israel off the map. Does Mr. Naji believe Mr. Ahmadinejad would be content when in possession of nuclear weapons to just sit on them and let the 12th imam take care of Israel when he returns, or would the Iranian president prepare the way for the 12th imam's coming by taking matters into his own hands and pressing the nuclear button himself? One would like to know.

Also, Mr. Naji misses the point about Mr. Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denial. This obsession is worth noting not because it reflects Mr. Ahmadinejad's supposed ineptness or innocence on the international stage, but his singleness of purpose. It is entirely consistent with his drive to acquire intercontinental ballistic nuclear missiles capable of reaching the cities of America and the nuclear missiles to put on them.

Mr. Naji is at pains to argue that Mr. Ahmadinejad does not rule Iran with total power. However the author acknowledges that the president's close personal allies do control the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, the security services and the country's nuclear development program.

Mr. Naji also belittles and underestimates Mr. Ahmadinejad by painting him as a chaotic and feckless administrator. However, Mr. Ahmadinejad has been extremely thorough in purging the Iranian nuclear, diplomatic, military and national security establishments of any perceived or relative moderates - a process that Mr. Naji acknowledges but does not study in sufficient detail

Mr. Naji is addicted to the conceit that Mr. Ahmadinejad is filled with contradictions: In fact, he appears to be an extremely integrated and consistent individual. Once one acknowledges that his Twelver Shi'ite apocalyptic faith is deeply, fervently and sincerely held, all the alleged contradictions vanish.

Mr. Naji portrays the president of Iran as - at heart - a simplistic hick. It doesn't seem to occur to him that in terms of political talents and strategic competence there may be a lot more to him than that.

Martin Sieff is defense security editor of United Press International and author of "Politically Incorrect Guide to the Middle East."