My Dinner with AhmadinejadTHE WALL STREET JOURNAL: NEW YORK -- The banquet hall of the Grand Hyatt Hotel in mid-town Manhattan had the feel of an extravagant Persian wedding on Wednesday night. A crowd of over one thousand guests, dressed in formal attire, sat around tightly packed tables munching on Iranian delicacies and chit-chatting casually in Farsi.
But the occasion was a dinner hosted by Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The guest list, all Iranian-Americans living in the tri-state area, had been drawn up from the database of Iran's mission to the United Nations and consulate in Washington D.C.
Mr. Ahmadinejad was in town this week to attend the United Nations General Assembly and was making the rounds, giving back-to-back interviews to American media and hosting two dinners, one for a select group of Iran experts and scholars and the other for his fellow Iranians.
My invitation to dine with the president had arrived in the mail, with a reminder in small Persian letters that female guests were obliged to cover their hair in accordance with the laws of the Islamic Republic. At the dinner, I noticed the only women not wearing a headscarf were the female wait staff and one middle-aged Iranian woman wearing a long striped red coat. Her curly brown bob was bouncy as she glided between the tables.
"No one told you to cover your hair?" I asked her.
"Not a single person and they all saw me," she replied not giving me her name.
In Iran, a woman could risk getting arrested if she disobeys the Hijab law. I threw on a green shawl over my head right before I walked through the metal detector and handed my purse to an American policeman for a thorough search.
Extreme security measures had to be taken so Mr. Ahmadinejad could host his dinner party at the Grand Hyatt that night.
Dozens of burly American secret service members, dressed in plain suits with an ear-piece plugged into one ear, swarmed the hotel lobby and the banquet hall standing shoulder to shoulder with Iranian bodyguards. Elevators to the event's floor were shut down.
Uniformed New York City police officers were also present in abundance. Police dogs sniffed around the area and at least 20 police cars lined up outside the hotel, in addition to an ambulance and a fire truck. This was in case of an attack against Mr. Ahmadinejad; one police officer said they had taken shifts securing the hotel all day long.
Last week, while Mr. Ahmadinejad spoke at the U.N., a crowd of protestors, both American and Iranian, had gathered outside chanting slogans against his nuclear energy policies, his record of human rights and his animosity toward Israel.
Inside Iran, sentiments are divided over him. The ultra conservatives praise his populist demeanor while others criticize him for his government's economic policies that have contributed to the rise of unemployment and a 25% inflation rate, despite a country swimming in cash from soaring oil prices.
At the dinner party in New York, criticism of Mr. Ahmadinejad appeared to have been brushed aside and replaced with fervent nationalistic pride. Both the host and the attendees appeared to cling to the one strong, if only, tie: being Iranian.
The banquet hall was decorated as if it were national Iran day.
My Dinner with Ahmadinejad >>> By Farnaz Fassihi | September 27, 2008
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