United Nations Leadership

A country that poses a very real threat to regional security, one moreover whose human rights record is so perversely blemished manages by some miraculous sleight-of-mind to present as a member in good standing of the United Nations, the very body that has led in exacting economically ruinous sanctions in response to its unauthorized uranium enrichment program.  Yet this very same country is seen quite obviously as one to be respected as witnessed by the fact that the United Nations holds conferences in its capital city of Tehran.

Knowing full well that given that international forum the Islamic Republic of Iran will speak to any topic of general attention, somehow managing to inveigle absurdly slanderous accusations against the State of Israel as being the fount of all evil in the world.  Amazingly, in attendance at these conferences are not only human-rights-abusing states whose record of abuse is only minimally less invasive than Iran's, but also diplomatic envoys of advanced European states.

Their acquiescence to such scenarios is implicit, in that when they become part of such gatherings and are exposed to the incredibly image-damaging rants of the vice-president of Iran vilifying Israel, claiming it to be involved in all manner of pernicious schemes to bring misery to the world, there is no one present who would bother to demonstrate the merest contempt for such mind-boggling and vicious inanities.

And so, those gathering in Tehran for a UN-sponsored conference on drug trafficking hear out instead the ravings of rabidly hateful accusations against a country and its people having nothing whatever to do with the matter under discussion.  But their very presence in the country of a nation whose leaders have gone out of their way to repeatedly threaten violence of obliteration against another country serves to give legitimacy to that country's assertions.

The western delegates at the UN global drug enforcement conference in Tehran were treated to an extraordinary spectacle as Iran's Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi roused himself to an inflammatory speech against Israel, claiming the Talmud "teaches them how to destroy non-Jews so as to protect an embryo in the womb of a Jewish mother".  A perplexing accusation that must have whirled about in the mind of a fanatic determined to instill dread and distaste in the minds of like-minded bigots.

"Zionists", he claimed are responsible for the trafficking of illicit drugs throughout the world.  "You cannot find a single addict among the Zionists", he claimed.  The idea being that Jews infect others with the germ of narcotic addiction, but yet are themselves usefully immune from contracting that very same disease, armoured with the wish, presumably, to destroy other societies, not their own.  This kind of nonsensical, childish nonsense emanating from the mind of a high ranking government official boggles the mind.

The New York Times which appears to have covered the UN-sponsored conference titled International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, wrote that this man with the truly troubled mind echoing the prevailing official opinion of his peers, confidently asserted that Zionists order gynecologists to kill black babies.  What's more, he had inside information that the 1917 Russian Revolution was initiated by Jews - and tellingly, none, he said, died in it.  Though if any of them heard what he had to say they might have died laughing.

That credibility would be given this kind of incredible claptrap by those present and hearing out the hateful messages would simply listen and report on what they had heard, without anyone lifting a voice to challenge the mindset that conceived of such legendary absurdities, speaks volumes about the general atmosphere that dominates at all United Nations-sponsored events.

One Western diplomat present at the event claimed that the 10-minute speech had him "really shocked and surprised".  So shocked and surprised, evidently, that his reason and his voice left him shell-shocked, incapable of responding intelligently, rationally, and with the conviction of having the truth at his recall.  "We've heard speeches like this before but this was so much worse than the usual rhetoric.  This wasn't about drugs.  It seems the Iranians want to create an issue and are deliberately looking to stir things up", the diplomat elaborated.

And as long as those who know better but hold their counsel allow that perfervid nonsense to go unchallenged, Iran will continue to consider its outrageously lunatic and dangerous slanders to be perfectly acceptable, in fact validated by all those who are exposed to it.  Catherine Ashton, the EU's foreign policy chief responsible for negotiating with Iran on behalf of six world powers with respect to nuclear talks that lead to no solutions whatever, reacted by saying the speech was anti-Semitic, "unacceptable".

Those present at the conference appear to have thought it completely acceptable.