Haaretz
Tevet 12, 5767
Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad scorned the UN Security Council's imposing sanctions on Iran,
telling a crowd Tuesday that Iran had humiliated the United States in the
past and would do so again.
Speaking in the southwestern provincial
capital of Ahvaz, Ahmadinejad
said the Security Council's resolution
of December 23 was invalid and had left the world body's reputation in
tatters.
His speech made no referrence to series of bombings that
have occurred in
Ahvaz, believed to stem from tension between the
city's Arabic-speaking
community and the Farsi-speaking authorities.
Nor did Ahmadinejad refer to the results of Iran's local elections of
December 15, in which his political allies were heavily
defeated.
The Security Council voted unanimously to bar all
countries from selling
materials and technology to Iran that could
contribute to its nuclear and
missile programs. It also froze the
assets of 10 Iranian companies and 12
individuals related to those
programs.
"Let the world know that from the Iranian nation's point
of view, this
resolution has no validity," Ahmadinejad said.
He
said the United States was the main power behind the resolution, and
warned Washington: "I want you to know that the Iranian nation has
humiliated you many times, and it will humiliate you in
future."
The United States has led the drive to stop Iran from
enriching uranium - a process that produces the material for either
nuclear reactors or bombs. Iran denies that it seeks to build atomic
weapons, saying its nuclear program is limited to the generation of
electricity.
Ahmadinejad said the sanctions were not important but
were part of a campaign of psychological warfare against Iran that was
designed to provoke dissent within the country.
"You are nobody,"
he told the Western powers. Recalling the West's support for Iraq, then
ruled by Saddam Hussein, during its eight year war with Iran in the 1980s,
he said: "If all the powers that supported Saddam in his war against Iran
were to regroup and confront Iran again, Iranians would deliver a historic
slap in their face"
Ahmadinejad said Iran had done everything it
could to prove that its nuclear program is peaceful but the West, in the
name of opposing nuclear weapons, was trying to thwart Iran's
development.
"We have tried all legal, wise and logical ways to
convince these corrupt and selfish powers," he said of the
West.
While Ahmadinejad has repeatedly attacked the Security
Council resolution, he has avoided any public comment on the results of
the municipal elections of December 15.
The polls were seen as an
electoral test of Ahmadinejad's presidency, and the success of his
opponents suggested that voters want him to pay more attention to domestic
issues rather than foreign policy - where he is fond of challenging the
West by taking an inflexible line on the nuclear program and by calling
for the destruction of Israel.
Some people in the crowd in Ahvaz on
Tuesday tried to remind the president of the need to address domestic
problems. State television showed a placard carried by one spectator that
read: "Inflation, unemployment, insecurity, drug addiction have desiccated
the tree of the revolution."
Inflation is officially at 12 percent
but thought to be much higher, and an estimated 3 million people are
unemployed.
Three bombings in Ahvaz, the capital of Khuzestan
province, killed a total of 23 people and wounded dozens more in January
2006, and June and October 2005.
In July, a court condemned to
death five Iranian Arab separatists for the
blasts. An Iranian Arab
insurgent group, the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz,
claimed responsibility for the January blast.