Bend it like Ahmedinajad

With three weeks in Soccer World Cup 2006, all eyes are on the training and prepartion of 32 participating nations. On the other hand, some are lobbying FIFA to expel Iran from the tournament. Mercifully, most European leaders have shunned the idea, and FIFA has made clear it’s a non-starter.

Tony Karon, in his analysis of the situation, writes that soccer is a source of national pride to Iranians at home and throughout the exile Diaspora. President Mahmoud Ahmedinajad has recognized the appeal of soccer among elements of civil society opposed to the regime, and has even moved to put himself on-side with that trend by attempting to reverse a decades-old religious edict against women attending matches. He writes:

What I’m worried about is the move to bar Ahmedinajad personally from attending his country’s games. Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel is coming under pressure to use her country’s laws against Holocaust denial to declare him persona non-grata, but that’s a tough call when the person in question is a head of state. She has indicated that only an EU travel ban would make that possible, and that’s very unlikely to occur in time for the World Cup. The Germans are hoping Ahmedinajad gets the message and stays away, warning that he would be called to answer for his positions on Israel and the Holocaust if he shows up. But that may be just the sort of dog-and-pony show you seek if you’re Mahmoud Ahmedinajad and you don’t like the way nuclear negotiations are going between the West and the more pragmatic elements who trump Ahmedinajad in Iran’s power structure. If the search is on for a diplomatic solution, which Ahmedinajad may well seek to sabotage for his own domestic power reasons, then the more prudent approach may simply be to ignore Ahmedinajad if he decides to show up in, uh, Nuremberg, for Iran’s opener against Mexico on June 11.

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