Political Quotes

“I rise today to speak about the deteriorating human rights situation in Iran. We understand that Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei--Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Chief of Staff will be arriving in the United States as early as tomorrow. Mr. Mashaei is a close friend and trusted adviser of President Ahmadinejad. Their kinship began in 1982 when President Ahmadinejad was governor of Khoy in West Azerbaijan and the Intelligence Ministry appointed Mr. Mashaei to the security team in the Kurdistan region next door. Since then, Mr. Mashaei has been a member of Ahmadinejad's inner circle. The world knows of President Ahmadinejad's public incitement against Jews and Israel--most infamously with his pledge to wipe Israel off the map. But the world may not know the virulent anti-Israel and anti- Semitic views of his trusted adviser. In 2008, Mr. Mashaei told Sudanese President Omar Hassan Ahmad al- Bashir: The corrupt and criminal Zionist regime is harming not only the Arab and Islamic world, but humanity in its entirety . . . in order to save humanity from its different crises, there is no other way other than the limiting of Zionist influence on human society, because the root and origin of most of the world's current crises are related to Zionism. Shortly after the discredited Iranian Presidential election in June 2009, Mr. Mashaei was appointed Presidential Chief of Staff--after a very brief and unsuccessful attempt to serve as the first Vice President of Iran.…”