Roger Cohen is over the Iranian president:
'Not surprisingly, in Fareed Zakariaâ??s â??post-American world,â? he has an audience. Heâ??s adept enough, with a touch of Tony Curtis in â??The Boston Strangler,â? switching personalities with eerie ease.Throw in some headline-grabbing lunacy â?? 9/11 as self-inflicted, or the Holocaust as invention, or â??Iran is the freest country in the worldâ? â?? and you have a post-modern media star and villain.
And what do all his words amount to? Iâ??d say not a whole lot beyond unnecessary misery for 71 million isolated Iranians. This guy is all hat and no cattle.
Ahmadinejad is odious but I donâ??t think heâ??s dangerous. Some people do of course find him dangerous, especially in the Israel he gratuitously insults and threatens, and yet others â?? many more Iâ??d say â?? find it convenient to find him dangerous. [Emphasis mine. - KS]
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Much of this is due to Iran's truly Byzantine powers structure - the most powerful figure in the country, Ayatollah Khamenei, is a virtual recluse on the world stage, while the regime's lesser-executive, Ahmadinejad, is a loudmouthed, egotistical and antisemitic iconoclast. He is a polarizing figure not only in his own country, but abroad as well.
However, in its quest to inflate the Islamic Republic into an imminent and existential threat, the West bears a chunk of the blame for Ahmadinejad. Absurd comparisons to Nazi Germany and whatnot have no doubt fueled his own inflated sense of global relevance, while at the same time solidifying factions within Iran's halls of power both for and against him. To his supporters, Ahmadinejad irritates and antagonizes all of the right people; to his detractors, he has only further isolated and embarrassed a once proud nation.
And here's the sad twist: There's good reason to believe - be it out of self-preservation or pure ego - that Ahmadinejad wanted a nuclear deal with the West.
While such a deal isn't beyond the realm of possibility, it would seem far less likely in post-2009 Iran. Any deal brokered during Ahmadinejad's remaining time in office would likely be wed to the embattled president, making it a difficult pill to swallow for Iranian pragmatists and reformers. It would lend his administration credibility; a credibility which has been rapidly deteriorating due to the 2009 election and his mismanagement of the economy.
In short, the chances of a nuclear agreement, while not entirely affected by American behavior, have ebbed and flowed with Mr. Ahmadinejad's own political standing both at home and abroad.
But nonproliferation needn't hinge on the unhinged if Western leaders and analysts would only attempt a radical new tactic in dealing with this controversial figure: Ignore him.
(AP Photo)