New York:
Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ran through his standard talking points at his annual gathering with American journalists on Tuesday, denying that dissidents languished in jail or that economic sanctions were biting, and rejecting the idea that Tehran deserved anything less than a gold star for its nuclear inspection record. But this time, he embroidered his remarks with a little fresh bluster.
Seated at a conference table surrounded by news editors and television producers, the Iranian president told his breakfast guests that, should the United States attack Iran over its nuclear program, it would become embroiled in a war that would make previous American conflicts pale in comparison.
"The United States has never entered a real war, not in Vietnam, nor in Afghanistan, nor even World War II," Ahmadinejad said during the meeting at a hotel in Midtown Manhattan, part of what has become his ritual charm offensive when he attends the United Nations General Assembly. "War is not just bombing someplace. When it starts, it has no limits."
At the same time, he rejected the idea that tensions would ever reach that point, dismissing the threat of an attack on Iran as mere psychological warfare. "We have always been prepared to talk," Ahmadinejad said.
Relations between Tehran and Washington have become even more distant since the United Nations Security Council passed a fourth round of sanctions in June -- penalties that were supplemented by additional measures passed by the United States and Asian and European nations. The United Nations nuclear watchdog said this month that Iran had since refused to give inspectors access and information about its nuclear program.
Iran insists that its nuclear program is peaceful, but American officials have said it is moving closer toward "nuclear weapons capability."
On Tuesday, Ahmadinejad blamed politics for the pressure and criticism from international inspectors, saying that they had access to Iranian nuclear sites and that his country was operating in line with international nuclear treaties.
"Iran's nuclear case is a political case," he said. "Otherwise, why would it be essential for the details of our nuclear program to be made available to the media?"
He continued, "What we do is legal. We always stand behind the law."
Ahmadinejad defended Iran's judiciary, which faced a barrage of criticism over the arrests of an estimated 500 journalists, activists and government officials after his disputed re-election in June 2009. This summer, an Iranian woman's sentence of death by stoning for an adultery charge, which has reportedly been suspended, set off more international condemnation.
But on Tuesday, Ahmadinejad told reporters, "You do not understand our judicial system." He said Iran was not imprisoning anyone for political reasons -- a view at odds with the assessments of human rights groups.
"Whatever happened is done under the supervision of the judge, disciplinary forces and the intelligence," he said. "People criticize the government very harshly in fact, and we don't create any restrictions on it."
Ahmadinejad, asked for his reaction to the proposed $60 billion sale of combat aircraft and other American arms to Saudi Arabia, said the United States evidently had economic problems the sale would help solve. The arms, he said, "are not threats to us," although the deal was devised to bolster defenses with American allies in the region and restrict any leverage Iran might seek with its nuclear program.
But Ahmadinejad cautioned that such arms might one day fall into the wrong hands, apparently a wry allusion to what happened in Iran after the shah fell and an American-armed ally became an adversary. If Saudi Arabia's politics changed, he said, those arms "might fall in the hands of others."
While Ahmadinejad has sought to use the United Nations visit to portray himself as the powerful leader of a unified nation, political rivals in Iran's conservative hierarchy appear to be exploiting his absence to embarrass him at home. Some have suggested that he could even be impeached over what they have described as his autocratic behavior and disregard for other branches of government, particularly Parliament.
Parliament's speaker, Ali Larijani, broadly hinted at the constitutional power of the legislative branch to remove Ahmadinejad, in a speech given on Sunday, as the president was traveling to New York. "The legislative branch has important powers, and the people select representatives in the event that administration infringes on the rights of the people," Larijani said.