Obama, Ahmadinejad, Netanyahu at the UN

By Katie Hollander

On the week of September 25th, Iran’s nuclear weapon’s program took center stage at the United Nations. The leaders of the United States, Israel, and Iran all made speeches giving their point of view regarding Iran’s desire to develop a nuclear weapon.President Obama gave the first address on September 25th whereby he stated that he will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. President Obama thinks that allowing Iran to be a nuclear power would risk the state of “Israel’s existence, start a nuclear arms race in the Middle East and risk the global economy.” President Obama declined giving a specific timetable for military action. On September 26th, the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, also gave a speech at the UN declaring his point of view on the conflict. Earlier in the week, he used strong words when talking about “Israel and their right to exist”. In his speech to the UN, he toned it down, but he feels the U.S. is using “nuclear intimidation” against his country. In his speech, he denied that Iran is trying to build a nuclear weapon and is only using their “nuclear program for peaceful purposes.” On September 27th, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, made the final speech at the United Nations. In his speech, he said again that he wants the world to “draw a red line that Iran can’t cross.” “If they cross the line, the world would use military action to destroy Iran’s nuclear program.” He used a “childlike” drawing of a bomb to illustrate how far Iran has come in their development process. According to his drawing, Iran is at a 70% enrichment level and he thinks Iran shouldn’t get further than 90%. The analyst at Foreign Policy Magazine thinks that the speech was also directed at the U.S presidential candidates to try and force them on a timetable for action.