TEHRAN - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may have faced ridicule in the United States by suggesting there were no homosexuals in Iran, but he won praise at home on Wednesday for taking his country's case to "the Lion's Den".Right on cue!
Generally, politicians and media in the Islamic Republic — even some who have previously criticised the president — described Ahmadinejad's visit to New York as a triumph and denounced the university president who called him "a petty and cruel dictator".
Gee, didn't see that coming.
But one pro-reform newspaper said that, although the president told his U.S. audience he respected academics, that was not always how it seemed at home.
Especially when he disagrees with the subject.
Ahmadinejad, who often rails against the West, travelled to the United States at a time of escalating tension between the two foes over Tehran's nuclear ambitions and the war in Iraq.
The president spoke at Columbia University on Monday and on Tuesday addressed the U.N. General Assembly, where he told world leaders the issue of Iran's nuclear ambitions was "closed" and that military threats and sanctions had failed.
"By fearlessly and courageously
Iran denies U.S. accusations it is seeking atomic bombs, saying it wants to generate electricity. It also rejects accusations it is violating human rights and muzzling critics.
Around 200 lawmakers hailed Ahmadinejad's "historical and memorable" stay in New York, saying in a statement his "courageous" speech on Monday had made Muslims happy while angering Iran's enemies like Israel, the Mehr News Agency said.
Others condemned the way Ahmadinejad was treated at Columbia University, where he criticised Israel and the United States and provoked laughter and jeers by saying Iran had no homosexuals.
They're either dead or hiding or being ignored.
Homosexuality is a crime punishable by death in Iran.
See?
Introducing Ahmadinejad, Columbia University President Lee Bollinger said he acted like a dictator and his Holocaust denials showed he was "brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated".
One Iranian MP described Bollinger's remarks as insulting.
Don't confuse insulting with the pain that can come along with the truth.
The head of Iran's judiciary, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi- Shahroudi, who has in the past criticised Ahmadinejad, said he had defied hostile "plotters" to deliver his speech.
But the reformist newspaper, Aftab-e Yazd, contrasted his comments in New York on how Iran respects its academics with the way some of them were being treated in the country.
Like the American academics you respectfully arrested for no reason recently?
The daily referred to a harshly worded response by some officials to an open letter in June signed by 57 economists criticising the government's economic and foreign policies.
"No doubt, Ahmadinejad's logic and composure in the face of the Columbia University head's disgracing remarks is a cause of pride for all Iranians," it wrote. "However, history will remember this behaviour only if ... he can prove that he trusts all academics and in all affairs."
Logic? Must mean something different if Farsi. And "composure" can come when you don't have your armed support mechanism around you.
