Vereinigung der Iranischen(Konstitutionalisten) Monarchisten

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Din ( Do.) 24.Farwardin 2565 ,13 April 2006

Stay Away From World Cup, German Commentators Tell "Madman of Tehran"

David Crossland

Should Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has doubted the scale of the Holocaust and wants to eradicate Israel, be allowed to visit Germany to watch his national team play in the World Cup? A German cabinet minister has come under fire for saying he could come. That remark has stoked up a barrage of newspaper editorials telling the Iranian leader to stay away.

German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble has whipped up controversy by saying Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has threatened to "wipe Israel off the map," could come to Germany to watch Iran play during the World Cup. Speaking at a conference on Saturday hosted by the German soccer federation (DFB), Schäuble said: "Naturally he can come to the matches. It won't be a simple matter because of the things that he has said in the past that are simply unacceptable. But my advice is we should be good hosts. We want to be better."

Ahmadinejad, who is defying the international community with a nuclear program the West suspects is aimed at producing nuclear bombs, has also questioned whether 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis in the Holocaust. If he repeated that assertion in Germany he would be breaking a law that makes denial of the Holocaust a crime punishable with up to five years in prison.

If Ahmadinejad did come, Schäuble of the conservative Christian Democratic Union said he would take him to task for his comments. That wasn't enough to placate the central Council of Jews in Germany, which called Schäuble's statement a "scandal" and said he was "risking ruining the government's credibility in the fight against anti-Semitism." Politicians have also weighed in. "Herr Ahmadinejad should kindly stay at home," Hans-Ulrich Klose, foreign policy expert for the Social Democrat party, which shares power in the government , told the mass-circulation Bild. The German Foreign Ministry has pointed out that heads of government enjoy immunity and don't need a visa to enter Germany. Unless, that is, the European Union were to slap a visa ban on Ahmadinejad as it did for Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko on Monday.

German newspapers have been too busy expressing their outrage at the prospect of his visit to bother checking whether Ahmadinejad actually plans to come. He doesn't, according to an Iranian government official quoted by Reuters on Sunday. "It is not on his agenda," Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters. Iran's opening match against Mexico on June 11 is in Nuremberg.

But who's to say Ahmadinejad won't change his mind if Iran kicks its way into a semi-final or even the final? Basking in his team's soccer glory with the world watching may prove too tempting to resist. Iran's team is ranked 19th in the world, three places ahead of hapless host team Germany.

Top-selling tabloid Bild newspaper says the "Madman of Tehran" should stay at home. "The motto of the World Cup is: 'A Time to Make Friends.' Everyone is looking forward to the peaceful festival of nations here with us," writes Bild in a commentary. "Everyone is welcome here -- except for one person: Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad! As long as the madman of Tehran denies the Holocaust, tinkers with an atomic bomb and supports terrorism, he should stay at home. The World Cup mustn't be poisoned by a political fanatic and abused for his purposes."

Center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung notes that there are no travel limits on Iranian government officials, so Schäuble's position is in line with international diplomacy. Similarly, all relevant authorities including the German government have rejected calls for Iran to be excluded from the World Cup. "It's he (Ahmadinejad) himself who has built up obstacles to a sporting visit. His predecessor, reformist President Mohammad Khatami, was able to enjoy full honors in a state visit to Germany. But the respect he generated for his country has been swiftly and thoroughly gambled away by Ahmadinejad." A visit would also pose security problems because exiled Iranians would be bound to seize the opportunity to stage protests, the newspaper adds.

The left-wing Die Tageszeitung devotes its entire front page to the story headlined "Fair Play For an Anti-Semite?" and shows a smiling Ahmadinejad jogging in a soccer tracksuit. It points out that women aren't allowed to watch football matches in Iranian stadiums and quotes various politicians, film directors, sportsmen and religious leaders on the subject. They disagree on whether he should be allowed in but one message is clear in most of the commentaries: He wouldn't be welcome.

Business daily Financial Times Deutschland comments on an article released over the weekend by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh that the US administration is stepping up plans for a possible air strike on Iran. Hersh's story in the April 17 issue of the New Yorker magazine, mostly citing unidentified current and former officials, says President George W. Bush views Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a "potential Adolf Hitler," and wants "regime change" in Tehran. The Hersh report also says the administration is seriously considering using "bunker buster" tactical nuclear weapons to ensure the destruction of Iran's main centrifuge plant at Natanz. The Financial Times Deutschland says Bush may be deliberately encouraging speculation about his war planning so that he can increase the pressure on Iran to back down in the diplomatic stand-off over its nuclear program. "The pressure is necessary because Iran has shown itself to be unimpressed by the threats of sanctions from the United Nations Security Council," writes the paper. "The regime can evidently only be impressed by a large military threat." That isn't to say it's an empty threat, it adds. "Bush is in his second term, cannot be re-elected, doesn't have to be popular at all cost. Whether there will be a military strike depends on how Iran responds to the atmosphere of threat that Washington is gradually building. And whether Ahmadinejad in the coming months reinforces the impression that he is a far more dangerous man than Saddam Hussein ever was."