He called for more “research” into the unequivocal facts of the Holocaust, said Iranian women were among the freest in the world, and declared that homosexuality did not exist in his country. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad courts controversy wherever he goes, and his visit to New York this week was no exception. Addressing the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, Iran’s president said he considered the dispute over his country’s nuclear programme “closed”. He was also denied permission to lay a wreath at the site of the 9/11 attacks in New York.

But it was Ahmadinejad’s appearance last Monday at Columbia University that generated the most press buzz and protests. In a chiding introduction that has since generated sharply divided reactions, university President Lee Bollinger described the Iranian leader as “exhibiting all the signs of a cruel and petty dictator” and condemned his denial of the Holocaust as “either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated”.

Ahmadinejad came out swinging, calling Bollinger’s words “insults” and proceeded to deliver a speech to the university’s faculty and students that meandered between a religious sermon and a treatise on science. He repeated provocative statements that at times bordered on the absurd. He remained evasive on questions that ranged from human rights abuses in Iran to his call for Israel to be “wiped from the pages of history”, often responding to them with opaque rhetorical questions.

When asked for a one-word answer — “yes or no” — as to whether his government desired the “destruction of Israel as a Jewish state”, Ahmadinejad responded: “And then you want the answer the way you want to hear it. Well, this isn’t really a free flow of information... I’m asking you, is the Palestinian issue not an international issue of prominence or not? Please tell me, yes or no.”

Ahmadinejad’s visit comes at a time of heightened tensions between the US and Iran, with the George W Bush administration pushing the UN Security Council for a third round of economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic for its refusal to shut down its nuclear programme. Analysts suggest that the Iranian leader’s monologues and fiery rebuttals are all part of a contest of rhetorical muscle, a classic game of political theater.

“It’s a last bid to divide the West,” said Michael Hirsch, a senior editor at Newsweek magazine, during a forum on Monday at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

Six nations — Russia, China, Britain, France, Germany and the US — agreed on Friday to delay until November a new resolution that would toughen sanctions against Iran, waiting to see if Tehran cooperates with UN nuclear chief Mohamed ElBaradei and answers outstanding questions about its disputed nuclear programme. To more discerning critics, Ahmadinejad’s US visit only adds more smoke and mirrors to an already tangled political situation in the Middle East, one which the US cannot afford to exacerbate further by militarily confronting Iran.

“The overwhelming tide of opinion that Bush is hearing from the Pentagon is that this would be foolhardy and result in many repercussions in Iraq,” said Hirsch. “Bush knows that Iraq is his legacy, and that has sucked all the oxygen out of the room.” — IPS