Since his election in June 2005, the Iranian president has taken an extreme position on a number of critically important issues, heightening regional and international tensions. In violation of the basic principles of the UN Charter, he has repeatedly called for the destruction of Israel, a UN member state, saying it should be "wiped of the map." He also declared the Holocaust a "myth," and recently sponsored a Holocaust-denial conference in Tehran. Furthermore, he made threats against the United States and American interests, postulating a "world without the U.S."
Under Ahmadinejad's leadership, Iran incontrovertibly continues its aggressive pursuit of nuclear weapons capability. On December 23, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted resolution 1737, calling on Iran to suspend without further delay "all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, including research and development." However, President Ahmadinejad has defied the resolution, indicating that Iran has no intention of complying with its provisions. According to the Iranian news agency IRNA, he said: "The Iranian nation will not accept the resolution. The resolution is politically motivated." He further said: "We will soon celebrate final victory in the nuclear domain and will not give up on our rights even one iota."
Iran's nuclear program is all the more dangerous because it is part of Iran's broad push to extend its reach across the Middle East and beyond. Iran invests significant sums to underwrite terrorist organizations - using them as proxies to undermine Arab-Israeli relations and carry out attacks across the globe. The latest conflict in Lebanon, where Iran has blatantly sought to insert itself, suggests the far greater havoc that a nuclear Iran and its terrorist proxies would bring to the region and the world.
An unprecedented and devastating report, issued in October 2006 by the Argentine Special Prosecutor on the 1994 terrorist bombing of the AMIA headquarters, named seven Iranian former government officials, including a former president, and one Hezbollah operative as complicit in the attack. The report constitutes a chilling indictment of Iran's responsibility for this heinous crime, the deadliest terrorist attack in the region, which resulted in the death of 85 Argentines, Jews and non-Jews alike, and the destruction of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires.
Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons capability, its meddling in the internal affairs of other countries, and its sponsorship of international terrorism all constitute a compelling threat to regional and internal peace and security. In this context, Iran's president's visit to Latin America, the second in the last 12 months, should be viewed with concern by all nations in the hemisphere committed to global security and democratic values.
The international, and in this case the Inter-American community specifically, must counter this threat with concerted action. Inviting President Ahmadinejad to state visits at this time would send precisely the wrong message to Iran and its leader. Instead, nations of goodwill should be isolating the president and stressing that his aggressive posture risks making Iran a pariah state.
We call upon the concerned governments to reconsider their invitation to the Iranian leader.
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