A couple of days ago I posted about an almost-gushing report by NBC’s Ann Curry on a “day in the life” of Iran’s President Ahmadinejad. The questions she lobbed at him on that occasion were anything but hard-hitting.
Curry promised more questions in a one-on-one interview with Ahmadinejad, and I said I hoped for something better. If you want, you can watch the whole 50-minute interview here, as I did. It was a little better, but not much.
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Almost every time Curry asked even a mildly challenging question, she prefaced it by saying “With all due respect…” Leaving aside the matter of how much respect Ahmadinejad is actually due, did she really think this would make him any more forthcoming?
In general, she was deferential to a fault, and let him ramble on and on without interruption.
The big “get” of the interview was Ahmadinejad’s assertion that he expected two American hikers arrested and imprisoned for spying will be freed “in a couple of days” as a humanitarian gesture. He said their conditions in the notorious Evin prison were “like staying in a hotel.”
But in a reminder of the ongoing power struggle within the Iranian regime, and that Ahmadinejad plays a strictly subservient role to the Supreme Leader, Al Jazeera reports:
Two US nationals convicted of spying will not be released imminently from prison, Iran’s judiciary has said, a after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the country’s president, said they would be released in a “couple of days”.
“While denying [the] release of two Americans accused of espionage, the public relations of the judiciary announces that the request of the lawyer to post bail and free them is being studied by the case’s judge,” said a statement posted on the judiciary website on Wednesday.
“Any information in this regard will be issued by the judiciary and any release of information from other sources is not valid,” it added.
Ouch.
The first half of the interview was mostly devoted to Iran’s nuclear program. Ahmadinejad insisted, as he has countless times before, that his government has no interest in developing nuclear weapons.
Ahmadinejad acted hurt that “American leaders are so hostile to us… Why? What have we done?”
Ummm…
In response, Curry mentioned his expressed doubts about the official version of what happened on 9/11. In his rambling reply, Ahmadinejad tried to suggest that by expressing his doubts, he was actually trying to help America.
On the question of Palestinian statehood, he said Iran supports it “as a first step to the liberation of all Palestinian land,” i.e., the end of Israel. No surprise there.
Asked about the uprising in Syria as compared to the 2009 protests in Iran, Ahmadinejad piously proclaims that “we are with the people of Syria” while of course adding that no country has the right to interfere.”
On the 2009 protests, Ahmadinejad is at his most appalling.
“Nobody was suppressed here… Altogether 33 people were killed, two-thirds of them policemen and ordinary people who supported the government… We’re all friends.”
For some of the things Curry should have asked about, but didn’t, see the Harry’s Place archives.
