Iran’s President Ahmadinejad Challenges President Bush to Debate

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• JIM LEHRER:

  But first, the Iran story. Margaret Warner covered the Iranian president's news conference in Tehran today, and I spoke with her earlier this evening.

  Margaret, hello again.

• MARGARET WARNER:

  Hi, Jim.

• JIM LEHRER:

  Look, we know the news conference was very long. What struck you the most about it?

• MARGARET WARNER:

  Well, what struck me was, on the one hand, he didn't say anything new in the nuclear controversy. Iran he seemed to indicate isn't going to give any ground to the U.N., even though it's just 48 hours from the deadline.

  What struck me was that he went right on offense. He, of course, challenged President Bush to the debate, but even more kind of fundamentally he challenged the Security Council itself. He said they are unjust now and illegitimate and they're this holdover from the post-World War II era in which five countries have veto power and thus much more power than any other country.

  And, you know, he really went after America and Britain, both of whom have a history here, of course, in Iran. He said, you know, they might have been the victors after World War II, but they still call themselves the victors. They're still imposing their will on everyone for their own self-interest.

  And he said, you know, how long will the Americans and the British be the owners and look at other nations as slaves? He finally said, you know, the clear question is that all this started after World War II.

  And he said, how long must they continue, meaning the Security Council apparatus? He said, 60, 100, 1,000 years? I mean, how long must some nations think they're owners and the rest are second-class citizens? And he did it with a kind of passion and conviction that did startle me.

• JIM LEHRER:

  And did it come over as an effective argument, or was it just simple rhetoric?

• MARGARET WARNER:

  He actually came off as a real master political showman, and that really surprised me, because you don't see much coverage of him. First of all, he's small, but he's very brash and he's very cocky. And he delivers his arguments with great flourish, completely unrehearsed, completely unscripted, no notes. I mean, he may be rehearsed, but he has no notes.

  And he delivers them with a kind of passion that, you know, I think people who don't like what he's saying could actually find scary. But he does make them effectively. It's not like an old-style, you know, quote, "revolutionary leader" who repeats sort of the same line over and over. He had kind of a agility, a verbal agility that was pretty remarkable.