United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) issued the following statement following reports that Columbia University President Lee Bollinger has arranged to attend a private dinner for Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with Columbia students.
"UANI calls on Columbia University's President Lee Bollinger to cancel this "dinner with Ahmadinejad" immediately. It is highly inappropriate for the leader of a prestigious U.S. University to meet with the head of a regime that is defying the international community by pursuing nuclear weapons, ruthlessly violating the human rights of its people, and sponsoring al-Qaeda and other terrorists. Would Mr. Bollinger attend an event with the leaders of al-Qaeda?"
UANI also released a report detailing Iran's partnership with al-Qaeda, which the U.S. Treasury Department detailed earlier this year. According to Treasury, Iran is allied with al-Qaeda, and is allowing al-Qaeda to use Iran as a place to transfer money, weapons, and fighters to bases in Pakistan and Afghanistan. This evidence follows recent reports that al-Qaeda operatives such as Saif al-Adel, the organization's chief military strategist, have been operating out of Iran with impunity.
[Business Wire]
Columbia’s A’jad dinner -Yoav Gonan & Colin Mixson
A group of students at Columbia University will break bread with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Midtown next week, the student newspaper reported.
As many as 15 members of the Columbia International Relations Council and Association received e-mails over the summer inviting them to the private dinner, which is set for Sept. 21. A location has yet to be determined.
None of the council’s board members responded to an e-mail seeking comment, nor did the university’s press office. But the council’s vice president of academics, Tim Chan, told The Columbia Spectator that none of the members had expressed any reservations about participating.
[New York Post]
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UPDATE:
Columbia University Cancels Dinner with Ahmadinejad
United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) released the following statement regarding the previously planned dinner with Columbia students and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Said UANI Executive Director, David Ibsen:
UANI is pleased that Columbia students and faculty have apparently decided against meeting with Ahmadinejad this year. Columbia was widely criticized four years ago for its irresponsible decision to host Ahmadinejad, and as UANI and other groups argued, repeating that mistake again would have greatly damaged Columbia's reputation.
[UANI]
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3 comments:
These are difficult topics. The first impulse is to find this disgraceful and demand it not happen. Then you have to consider that the future of this world is to work out international relations issues. However, it does seem like things won't improve much with countries like Iran until they make internal changes first. Then there is the release of the American hikers, so i Iran trying to show it can be reasoned with. Certainly there is little indication this is the case in general though. Tough to figure out. Don't have a problem if public outcry stops this, and it is not good to give this guy or their current government legitimacy outside Iran, but an argument can be made in either case and I can't say either is wrong.
I don't see the gray you see. Meeting with a clear enemy state is foolish at best and dangerous, in that it promotes his status at the very time that Ahmadinejad is having political trouble with his mullah bosses.
It is true he seems to be having some issues back home but he will sink or swim based on the mullahs and nothing we say or do will have much impact on that. They are the ones that pull his strings and his trying to pull some of his own won't help him in the long run, and they are ultimately the ones that will decide if Iran pursues the final steps to going nuclear, or if they will just posture to gain some other benefits.
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