Now Ahmadinejad Wants Reparations Too!

First Iraq demands reparations from Israel for destroying the Osiraq nuclear reactor, now Ahamdinejad wants reparations from the West--for World War II:

Iran suffered immensely after it was invaded by the Allies during World War II and deserves reparations, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a live broadcast on state television Saturday.


The hard line Iranian President has ordered the formation of a team to study the damages the country suffered from the 1941 Allied invasion in order to demand compensation.

"You inflicted lots of damages to the Iranian nation, put your weight on the shoulders [of the Iranian people] and became victors in the World War II. You didn't even share the war profits with Iran," Ahmadinejad said.

"If I say today that we will take full compensation ... know that we will stand to the end and will take it."

The article, which comes via the AP, is sympathetic to Ahmadinejad's demands:

Britain and the Soviet Union invaded Iran on August 26, 1941, codenamed Operation Countenance to secure Iranian oil fields and ensure supply lines for the Soviets fighting Axis forces.

Food, fuel and other essentials were scarce amid mounting inflation and there was great hardship on the Iranian people as the needs of invading powers were given priority.

No indication though on what the AP thinks about the other reparations that Ahmadinejad is considering:

Ahmadinejad also warned that Iran may also demand compensation for the damages it suffered during World War I, the Western support for the former Pahlavi Dynasty and its hostility towards Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution

Come to think of it, there is also no mention of the connection of Iran to Nazi Germany. Edwin Black wrote about that back in 2006:

Iran's axis with the Third Reich began during the prewar years, when it welcomed Nazi Gestapo agents and other operatives to Tehran, allowing them to use the city as a base for Middle East agitation against the British and the region's Jews.

Key among these German agents was Fritz Grobba, Berlin's envoy to the Middle East, who was often called "the German Lawrence," because he promised a Pan-Islamic state stretching from Casablanca to Tehran.

...During the war years, Iran became a haven for Gestapo agents. It was from Iran that the seeds of the abortive 1941 pro-Nazi coup in Baghdad were planted. After Churchill's forces booted the Nazis out of Iraq in June 1941, German aircrews supporting Nazi bombers escaped across Iraq's northern border back into Iran.

You know, Ahmadinejad may be on to something: by all means lets take a good close look at what Iran was up to during WWII...

Technorati Tag: Ahmadinejad and Iran and Nazi Germany.