Pat Buchanan: Person of the Year - Ahmadinejad

[zgrams at zgrams.zundelsite.org]

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December 19, 2006
Person of the Year: Ahmadinejad

by Patrick J. Buchanan

Since 1927, the year Lindbergh flew the Atlantic in his single-engine 
Spirit of St. Louis, Time has devoted its final cover of the year to 
the Man of the Year. The Lone Eagle was first.

In the 1930s and 1940s, FDR was the Man of the Year three times. 
Stalin, Truman, and Churchill made it twice, though the selection of 
Churchill in 1949 seems dubious, as he had been out of power four 
years, while Mao was seizing China by the throat in the bloodiest 
revolution of the century.

Hitler was chosen in the year of Anschluss and Munich, 1938. Gen. 
Marshall made it twice, as did Ike, in 1944 as victor of Normandy 
and, 15 years later, as president.

In the 1960s and 1970s, JFK made it once, LBJ and Nixon twice. 
Nixon's 1972 designation was shared with Henry Kissinger. In 1979, 
the dark and brooding face gracing Time's cover was that of Iran's 
Ayatollah Khomeini.

And Time got it right. For Time's Man of the Year, now Person of the 
Year, is the figure who, for good or evil, dominates the news. Yet 
this year Time could not bring itself to name the obvious choice. 
Instead, it chose you and me, all of us citizens of the digital 
democracy who create on the Worldwide Web. Why the cop-out?

Perhaps it was Ahmadinejad's hosting of a conference of Holocaust 
skeptics, including David Duke, that caused Time to recoil. Perhaps 
it was fear that the face of the Iranian president on the cover of 
Time would repel the American people and be death for sales.

Surely that was the reasoning behind Time's refusal to name Osama bin 
Laden in 2001, choosing Rudy Giuliani instead, though history is 
unlikely to conclude that Rudy, his crowded hour notwithstanding, was 
the central figure of that annus horribilis.

Richard Stengel, editor of Time, as much as concedes he could not 
bring himself to choose by the traditional standard, if that meant 
choosing Ahmadinejad: "It just felt to me a little off selecting him."

Understandably. But the refusal to select Ahmadinejad reveals an 
unwillingness to confront hard truths. For putting his face on Time's 
cover would have done a useful service, jolting America to a painful 
realization. Not only George Bush, but the United States, its Arab 
allies and Israel, had a dreadful year, as Iran emerged as first 
beneficiary of a war fought by this country at a cost of 25,000 dead 
and wounded.

What the choice of Ahmadinejad would have said is that Iran is in the 
ascendancy in the Middle East and it is not inconceivable that the 
United States is headed for defeat, not only in Iraq but Afghanistan.

The Taliban have come back. The Pakistanis have ceded them sanctuary. 
Some NATO nations are refusing to risk troops in combat. And it has 
been some time since guerrillas who enjoyed a privileged sanctuary in 
that part of the world failed to expel European soldiers perceived as 
imperial occupiers.

Islamists control Somalia. Anti-Americanism is rampant in Lebanon - 
after Condi Rice blocked a UN cease-fire resolution to stop Israel's 
bombing last summer in what was supposed to be a campaign to clear 
Hezbollah from her northern border. The Beirut government could fall 
at any moment or be forced into a coalition with Hezbollah.

Even Bush's defense secretary concedes we are not winning in Iraq. It 
may take a "surge" of 20,000 to 40,000 troops to stave off defeat 
before the end of Bush's term. On the West Bank and Gaza, Hamas and 
Fatah appear on the brink of civil war. The elections Bush demanded 
produced dramatic gains for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, 
Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine, and Moqtada al-Sadr in Iraq.

Eighteen months ago, Ahmadinejad was the unknown mayor of Tehran. 
Today, he is the visible face of anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism, 
both a cause of and the personification of our failures. He has 
defied Bush's demand that he give up the enrichment of uranium, split 
the Security Council, mocked the Holocaust, called for the end of the 
Zionist state and the expulsion of America from the Mideast, 
terrified the Sunni monarchs, and united the Arab and Islamic masses 
behind his defiance.

His trip to the United Nations, where he ran circles around U.S. 
journalists, was a diplomatic triumph. And he has done it all not 
with military power - Iran would not last a week in an all-out war 
with the United States and has no defense against Israel's nuclear 
weapons - but with theatrics and rhetoric.

He inspires all who hate Israel and Bush's America. And, according to 
the Zogby polling today, that is a majority which, in some 
once-friendly nations, is approaching near unanimity.

Ahmadinejad, a man of words without real power, is the big winner of 
2006, because Bush, America, and Israel were the big losers.

Why do a billion Muslims prefer Ahmadinejad to America? That is the 
question that needs to be addressed.