Iran President Taunts ‘Wicked’ Bush
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
BERLIN — The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, taunted “wicked” President Bush yesterday, hours before the American leader warned that Iran could face military action over its nuclear program.
“All options are on the table” to prevent Iran acquiring nuclear weapons, Mr. Bush said on a visit to Germany.
After meeting the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, north of Berlin, he insisted that “both the chancellor and my first choice, of course, is to solve this diplomatically.”
But he quickly and pointedly referred to “all options” — shorthand for military intervention.
In a televised speech earlier, Mr. Ahmadinejad told thousands of supporters in central Iran that America was powerless to strike Iran and that Mr. Bush’s “era has ended.”
“This wicked man desires to harm the Iranian nation,” Mr. Ahmadinejad said of Mr. Bush as his audience chanted “Death to America.” “He made plans, moved into Afghanistan and then Iraq, and announced that Iran was the third target.
“I tell him… your era has come to an end. With the grace of God, you won’t be able to harm even one centimetrt of the sacred land of Iran.”
Mr. Ahmadinejad also promised that renewed economic sanctions would not “break” Iran.
The United Nations has so far imposed three rounds of sanctions on Iran in an attempt to force it to halt its uranium enrichment program, which Tehran insists is for peaceful energy generation purposes only.
Western powers suspect Iran wants to build nuclear weapons instead. Last week, Israeli Minister Shaul Mofaz said that an attack on Iran appeared “unavoidable” adding that “if Iran continues its nuclear development program, we will attack it.” Mr. Mofaz then described sanctions as “ineffective.”
But speaking after their meeting, both Mrs. Merkel and Mr. Bush promised to stick with the tactic. “Our position is that we ought to enforce the sanctions in place and we ought to work with our allies to levy additional sanctions if they choose if the Iranians choose to continue to ignore the demands of the free world,” Mr. Bush said.
