Throughout his nearly hour-long interview with Charlie, Ahmadinejad emphasized the extent to which the Islamic Republic, and he personally have gone to engage the United States since Barack Obama was elected President. Ahmadinejad cites his own personal letter of congratulations to President-elect Obama (which has never been answered), Iran’s willingness to cooperate with the United States in Afghanistan, Iraq, and even Palestine, and Tehran’s continuing interest in working with the United States and other countries to refuel the Tehran Research Reactor as a confidence-building measure that could pave the way for additional cooperation.
Furthermore, Ahmadinejad stated categorically that Iran does not want nuclear weapons and that they would violate not only the Iranian people’s religious beliefs but also their culture. Against this backdrop, he underscored several times the profoundly negative impact of the Obama Administration’s recently released Nuclear Posture Review, with its implicit threat of nuclear first use against the Islamic Republic. Ahmadinejad was dismissive about the impact of prospective new sanctions against Iran, but noted that the Obama Administration’s push for new sanctions “dirties the atmosphere”. Taken together, these threats and “radical positions” on the part of the Obama Administration will lead to “irreversible” damage to America’s strategic position, and America’s biggest opportunity to restore its standing in international affairs after the George W. Bush years will have been lost.
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