We Think Ahmadinejad Might Actually Be Crazy
There are days when we manage to convince ourselves that Ahmadinejad knows what he's doing. During those times, we end up believing that while he's pathological and evil, he has a decent grip on reality. So he knows that the Holocaust happened, for instance, but he's engaging in a deliberate rhetorical strategy to delegimitize Israel for theological reasons. But actually, he's just crazy:
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has told German Chancellor Angela Merkel that the Holocaust may have been invented by the victorious Allied powers in World War II to embarrass Germany, the semi-official news agency Mehr has reported. Ahmadinejad's remarks came in a letter sent to Merkel in July whose contents have not been disclosed until now. "Is it not a reasonable possibility that some countries that had won the war made up this excuse to constantly embarrass the defeated people ... to bar their progress," Ahmadinejad wrote. "The question is if these countries, especially Britain, felt responsible for the Holocaust survivors, why they did not settle them in their own countries?"
No wonder Merkel heaped scorn on the letter.
But the greater problem is this: for any diplomatic strategy to work - any at all - the people talking at least have to live in the same reality. They don't have to agree on everything - in this case, people can disagree about the extent of the Holocaust and still engage in something we'd call communication with each other - but there has to be some sort of common basis. Ahmadinejad really seems to believe that the Holocaust didn't happen. Why else would he make this claim to an actual German, except with the belief that secretly she knows it too and is just looking for the political backing to say it out loud? If he's really that far gone, there's a very real sense in which he doesn't live in the same world that the rest of us do. The great events that have shaped our lives and our sensibilities simply don't register with him. He is that far gone.
UPDATE: The German press has a hold of this story now. Ahmadinejad's attempt to make them feel better by convincing them that the Holocaust was a cruel joke played on them by the Allies doesn't seem to be going well. The picture of Merkel that they're running must be her unhappy face, and the photo is captioned "Merkel was not amused by the letter from Iran"
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has told German Chancellor Angela Merkel that the Holocaust may have been invented by the victorious Allied powers in World War II to embarrass Germany, the semi-official news agency Mehr has reported. Ahmadinejad's remarks came in a letter sent to Merkel in July whose contents have not been disclosed until now. "Is it not a reasonable possibility that some countries that had won the war made up this excuse to constantly embarrass the defeated people ... to bar their progress," Ahmadinejad wrote. "The question is if these countries, especially Britain, felt responsible for the Holocaust survivors, why they did not settle them in their own countries?"
No wonder Merkel heaped scorn on the letter.
But the greater problem is this: for any diplomatic strategy to work - any at all - the people talking at least have to live in the same reality. They don't have to agree on everything - in this case, people can disagree about the extent of the Holocaust and still engage in something we'd call communication with each other - but there has to be some sort of common basis. Ahmadinejad really seems to believe that the Holocaust didn't happen. Why else would he make this claim to an actual German, except with the belief that secretly she knows it too and is just looking for the political backing to say it out loud? If he's really that far gone, there's a very real sense in which he doesn't live in the same world that the rest of us do. The great events that have shaped our lives and our sensibilities simply don't register with him. He is that far gone.
UPDATE: The German press has a hold of this story now. Ahmadinejad's attempt to make them feel better by convincing them that the Holocaust was a cruel joke played on them by the Allies doesn't seem to be going well. The picture of Merkel that they're running must be her unhappy face, and the photo is captioned "Merkel was not amused by the letter from Iran"
