In addition to condemning Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s comments at the United Nations positing 9/11 conspiracy theories President Obama called them offensive, hateful, and inexcusable in his interview with BBC Persian today the president tied the comments to Israel’s fear of a nuclear Iran.
Asked about Israel potentially attacking Iran to stop its suspected nuclear weapons program, the president said he wouldn’t “engage in hypotheticals” but “understandably Israel is very concerned when the president of a country, a large country near them, states that they should be wiped off the face of the Earth.”
In October 2005, ISNA reported that Ahmadinejad said Israel should be "wiped off the map.” He was speaking at a forum titled "The World Without Zionism.”
That threat to Israel, President Obama said, is another “example of where the Iranian people I believe are ill served. To have a President who makes outrageous, offensive statements like this does not serve the interests of the Iranian people, does not strengthen Iran’s stature in the world community. And there is an easy solution to this, which is to have a Iranian government act responsibly in the international community, along the lines of not just basic codes of conduct or diplomatic norms, but just basic humanity and common decency.”
He concluded: “Again, for Ahmadinejad to come to somebody else’s country and then to suggest somehow that the worst tragedy that’s been experienced here, an attack that killed 3,000 people, was somehow the responsibility of the government of that country, is something that defies not just common sense but basic sense -- basic senses of decency that aren’t unique to any particular country -- they’re common to the entire world.”
