Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

It is the American practice to present others as guilty wherever they are defeated. Is it not funny that those with 160,000 forces in Iraq accuse us of interference?"

There is no doubt that the new wave in Palestine will soon wipe off this disgraceful blot from the face of the Islamic world.

Don’t Latin Americans have the right to ask why their elected governments are being opposed and coup leaders supported? Poverty and hardship in large parts of Africa are preventing this from happening. Don’t they have the right to ask why their enormous wealth – including minerals – is being looted, despite the fact that they need it more than others?

… the use of nuclear weapons is Iran's right.

The brave and faithful people of Iran too have many questions and grievances, including: the coup d’etat of 1953 and the subsequent toppling of the legal government of the day, opposition to the Islamic revolution, transformation of an Embassy into a headquarters supporting the activities of those opposing the Islamic Republic (many thousands of pages of documents corroborate this claim), support for Saddam in the war waged against Iran, the shooting down of the Iranian passenger plane, freezing the assets of the Iranian nation, increasing threats, anger and displeasure vis-?-vis the scientific and nuclear progress of the Iranian nation (just when all Iranians are jubilant and celebrating their country’s progress), and many other grievances that I will not refer to in this letter.

How long can this situation last and be tolerated? When Imam Ali, Commander of the Faithful, heard that an anklet was forcefully removed from the feet of a Jewish woman by the invaders in one of the frontier cities under his rule, he said, "If a man dies from grief because of this act, he should not be reprimanded."

We say that this fake regime (Zionist) cannot not logically continue to live. (April 24, 2006)

Anybody who recognizes Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation's fury.

Ahmadinejad was the only presidential candidate who talked against future relations with the United States. Also, in an interview with the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting a few days before the elections, Ahmadinejad accused the United Nations of being "one-sided, stacked against the world of Islam."

I don't think he's a “mad man.” He's an individual who is very committed to his view and ideology. There's almost a sort of apocalyptic mentality that reigns here and he's not alone in it. Unfortunately, there are a few people who may sign up for that kind of a point of view. The problem is that we have this kind of regime represented by such individuals who have taken, first-and-foremost, the Iranian people hostage for the past 30 years and who are completely uninterested about the state of our own citizens. They are only interested to use Iran as a base from which to launch what was from the very beginning the exploitation of a theocracy and Islamic ideology across the planet as a challenge to the rest of the world... I think you should take him very seriously. The last time the world was not quite sure about the final threat was at the time of Hitler in Nazi Germany and we know the rest of the story. If we look at these kind of regimes that have been completely merciless vis-?-vis their own population; who have been brutally shooting our youth on the streets simply because they ask for their freedom; and are willing to stop at nothing to intimidate the whole world to submit to their demand, I think we should take it very seriously.

Everyone knows that the Zionist regime is a tool in the hands of the United States and British governments.

We had principles in mathematics that were granted to be absolute in mathematics for over 800 years, but new science has gotten rid of those absolutism, gotten — forward other different logics of looking at mathematics, and sort of turned the way we look at it as a science altogether after 800 years.

Some Western powers admit that they have killed a large part of Jewish population in Europe and founded the occupied regime in order to put right the wrong they had committed.

Mr. President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator. [..] You are either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated. [..] Will you cease this outrage?

Why should it be insulting? ... Something happened there which led to other events. Many innocent people were killed there. Some of those people were American citizens obviously. We obviously are very much against any terrorist action and any killing. And also we are very much against any plots to sow the seeds of discord among nations. Usually you go to these sites to pay your respects. And-- also to perhaps to air your views about the root causes of such incidents. I think that when I do that, I will be paying, as I said earlier, my respect to the American nation.

In Iran we don't have homosexuals like in your country. […] In Iran we do not have this phenomenon. I don't know who's told you that we have this.

The United States has never entered a serious war, and has never been victorious.

If they want to continue with that path of sanctions, we will not be harmed. They can issue resolutions for 100 years.

My letter [Ahmadinejad's "letter to the American people"] had different aims and goals. Many American citizens in the messages and letters they sent requested that I bring up my points of view directly. Many of them said that the government of America doesn't let them receive my point of view in its entirety and without distortions. So I talked to them directly. The behavior of the American government has severely damaged the position of the United States. No country in the world looks upon America as a friend. When the U.S. is mentioned, people are reminded of war, aggression and bloodshed, and that's not a good thing. In other words, the American people are paying for something they don't believe in.

The bullying powers use different excuses to prevent transfer of science and technology and progress of the nations of our region.