In 2009, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad used his 3,500-word, 35-minute speech to defend his recent reelection as president of the Islamic Republic. Meanwhile, thousands of Iranian diaspora protested outside the building against his government's harsh crackdown on protests following the June vote.
With the world still in deep economic crisis from the collapse of the American housing market, Ahmadinejad took a dig at capitalism:
The engine of unbridled capitalism with its unfair system of thought has reached the end of [the] road and is unable to move. The era of capitalist thinking and imposition of one’s thoughts on the international community, intended to dominate the world in the name of globalization and the age of setting up empires is over. It is no longer possible to humiliate nations and impose double standards on the world community.
He also accused the Jewish "Zionists" of dominating politics, economies, and culture through "complicated networks," establishing "a new form of slavery."
Read his full speech in 2009 before the General Assembly.
