Time gets this rather right: The problem with Bush's speech to the UN is that no one over there thinks the president has any credibility. The memories of his speech asserting Saddam Hussein's WMDs and hegemonic intentions are too fresh, and too painful. Meanwhile, Ahmadinejad is on a global PR blitz, telling American magazines and UN diplomats that:
The issues which are of interest to us are the international issues and how to manage them. I gave some recommendations to President Bush in my personal letter, and I hope that he will take note of them. I would ask him, Are rationalism, spirituality and humanitarianism and logic--are they bad things for human beings? Why more conflict? Why should we go for hostilities? Why should we develop weapons of mass destruction? Everybody can love one another.[...]
We are opposed to nuclear weapons. We think it has been developed just to kill human beings. It is not in the service of human beings. For that reason, last year in my address to the U.N. General Assembly, I suggested that a committee should be set up in order to disarm all the countries that possess nuclear weapons.
Ahmadinejad is not, as the lit folks would say, an inherently credible narrator. The problem is, at this point, neither is George W. Bush. And because of that, this dapper, four-foot-tall hipster type is kicking our ass all over the UN.
