Daniel Drezner is not buying the line others are taking on Mad Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to the UN. He does not see it as a PR victory. He does not agree that Mahmoud is giving an"impressive" performance.
Color me mostly unimpressed. Ahmadinejad gets points for staying on message and not losing his temper. However, I judge whether someone has put in a good political performance based on whether they manage to persuade others of the merits of their worldview.
Looking at Gwertzman's account, I did not see that. Instead, I see Ahmadinejad getting pilloried by Matin Indyk, Brent Scowcroft, and Kenneth Roth — not exactly a homogenous bunch. Which might explain Ahmadinejad's truculence at the end:
As the meeting drew to a close, the Iranian leader observed, “In the beginning of the session you said you are independent, and I accepted that. But everything you said seems to come from the government perspective.” Haass responded that there had been no advance coordination among the Council participants and that “the aim was to expose you to views of a broad range of Americans. It would be wrong for you to leave this meeting thinking that you heard unrepresentative views.”
Like Hugo Chavez, Ahmadinejad might be able to stoke his own supporters, but he seems to excel even more at creating and unifying his adversaries.
That is a hugely important point. If people are too blind to see the hate this man stands for and are somehow charmed by his performance then they have a problem. Mad Mahmoud and his sidekick Mini Me Chavez are two sides of the same coin. They are both thugs who want worldly power. We should not be impressed with such people.
Why don’t we ever see polling data of these guys’ approval ratings among Americans? They could break it down by party. News organizations love to show approval ratings of our president among foreigners.