Ahmedinijad's barb clearly aimed at the US and Israel

Iran's Ahmadinejad says anyone stockpiling atom bombs "retarded"

News Daily,

9 November, 2012

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Thursday the age of nuclear deterrence was long gone and any country still stockpiling nuclear weapons was "mentally retarded".

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaks during a news conference in Nusa Dua, Bali November 2012. Ahmadinejad is in Bali to attend the 5th

He again denied Iran was trying to develop nuclear weapons, a day after the re-election victory of U.S. President Barack Obama, for whom Tehran's disputed nuclear program will be one of the thornier foreign policy issues of his second term.

"The period and era of using nuclear weapons is over ... Nuclear bombs are not anymore helpful and those who are stockpiling nuclear weapons, politically they are backward, and they are mentally retarded," Ahmadinejad told reporters at a forum to promote democracy on the Indonesian island of Bali.

"The Iranian nation is not seeking an atomic bomb, nor do they need to build an atomic bomb ... For defending ourselves we do not need a nuclear weapon," said Ahmadinejad.

He added that representatives of any government or agency could visit the Islamic Republic to verify that it was not developing nuclear weapons.

Iran says it is enriching uranium only for peaceful energy purposes but it restricts access for U.N. nuclear inspectors and concealed some sensitive sites from them in the past.

The West has imposed increasingly harsh and far-reaching sanctions on Iran over suspicions it is trying to design a nuclear weapon in secret. Sanctions include curbs on imports of the OPEC member's oil and on its sources of financing, battering its economy this year and putting Ahmadinejad under pressure.

The hardline conservative president said he was open to talks with Obama on forging peace around the world and called for the dismantling of all U.S. military bases abroad.

Obama's re-election may open an opportunity for new negotiations with Iran on agreeing constraints to its nuclear program, with sanctions piling economic pressure on its theocratic leaders.

Obama's Republican rival in the presidential election, Mitt Romney, had pledged a more hawkish approach to Iran had he won.

Ahmadinejad dismissed the U.S. election as a "battleground for the capitalists".

American election a 'capitalist battleground' – Ahmadinejad

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has lashed out at the record-shattering cost of this year's US presidential election, deriding the self-declared “forerunners of democracy” of the Western world.

RT,

9 November, 2012

Ahmadinejad claimed that American elections have turned into “battlegrounds for capitalists” and “excuses for hefty spending,” referring to the estimated $6 billion campaign bill for US presidential and congressional elections in a Thursday speech at the Fifth Bali Democracy Forum.

During the American presidential race only, more than $2 billion were raised and spent, making it the most expensive election in the country's history.

With hundreds of millions dollars contributed by corporations and the wealthy, the exceptionally costly campaign has provoked concerns and criticism not just from Tehran but even from as close as Canada.

“Big money has bastardized democracy in the United States,” Canadian MP Pat Martin said, as quoted by The Canadian Press. Martin went as far as saying that the US democracy, where corporations are legally considered people and granted free speech rights, has become “a mere shadow,” “an illusion,” of democracy.

Meanwhile, Canadian MP John McKay called the record campaign spending “obscene.”

While Ahmadinejad voiced concerns that many might share, he also came down on Western-style democracy, calling it “the rule of a minority over the majority.”

This comes on the heels of the recent UN Human Rights report on freedom of speech suppression in Iran, which Tehran dismissed as “unfair and biased.”

Ever since the 2009 Iranian election, which was perceived as rigged by the Iranian opposition, President Ahmadinejad has been under constant pressure from the West, including not only economic sanctions but harsh rhetoric as well.

Now that the US election is raising transparency questions, Ahmadinejad has had a chance to strike back.

Referring to international concerns about Iran’s nuclear program, Ahmadinejad asserted that the era of nuclear weapons “is over” and regarded to those still stockpiling them as “mentally retarded.”

“The Iranian nation is not seeking an atomic bomb, nor do they need to build an atomic bomb. For defending ourselves we do not need a nuclear weapon,” Iran’s president told reporters at the Bali Forum.

Despite criticism, Ahmadinejad still hopes to make friends for Iran amidst Western-imposed isolation, attending the Democracy Forum for the first time in five years.