From Sam Sedaei:
He knew that the city was home to over two million Jews, and that he would face massive protests. But that is precisely the martyr-like image that he was intending to create.
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The president of Columbia’s criticisms of Ahmadinejad’s crimes before his speech was very constructive. But Bollinger did the cause of free speech and America’s image in the Middle East a great deal of disservice when he went on for almost 19 minutes name-calling Ahmadinejad before allowing him to speak and not really thanking him for accepting Columbia’s invitation to speak.
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By keeping the focus on international issues, Columbia gave him an easy way to turn the conversation around time and again and criticize American policy.
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Many Iranians hoped that Columbia would take this opportunity to keep the focus of questions on Iran’s brutal domestic policies. And yet, of the five or six questions that were asked, astonishingly, only one related to human rights
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