Tehran puts on a show of strength

“Should it happen that a strong government finds it may with impunity destroy a weak people, then the hour strikes for that weak people to appeal to the League of Nations to give its judgment in all freedom. God and history will remember your judgment.”
– Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia

DAMASCUS – Haile Selassie delivered these words in an address to the league while the fascist army of Italy’s Benito Mussolini was invading Ethiopia in 1936. The Italian boycotted the session, and Italian journalists booed and hissed as the emperor was making his speech – not in French although he was fluent at it – but in Amharic.

TIME magazine labeled Haile Selassie man of the year, but the league failed at doing more than imposing partial – and ineffective – sanctions on Rome

Reportedly, Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad is an admirer, or as some would say, observer, of the ex-emperor, who ruled Ethiopia from as regent from 1916 to 1930, then as emperor from 1930 to 1974.

Probably, Ahmadinejad will not be given the chance to deliver such an address, and even if he did, the UN – just like its predecessor – would be completely incapable of helping.

Asia Times