On Tuesday, the Iranian president appeared in parliament to answer questions from MPs. Mr. Ahmadinejad took an hour to respond to a long list of questions about his foreign and domestic policy decisions.
He insisted they had been in accordance with the law, and denied that he had challenged the authority of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The president’s final words caused some uproar in the chamber.
“It was not a very difficult quiz,” he told the MPs, “To me, those who designed the questions were from among those who got a master’s degree by just pushing a button. If you had consulted us, better questions could have been drawn up.”
The president added that he deserved top marks. “Be fair. Any grade of less than 20 [out of 20] will be rude.”
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Mr. Ahmadinejad should have been asked this question:
“What have you done about the low birth rate in our country? Usually, high religious observance and low income go along with high birth rates. But, our country now has a birth rate similar to the least fertile region in the U.S. – New England. Don’t you think your government should have devised incentives for women to have more babies?”
To maintain his grades of twenty-twenty he should have answered:
“If I had not been so busy dealing with the lies the West is spreading about us, I would have already done what I am now going to do. I will follow in the footsteps of General de Gaulle. When faced with a declining birth rate in his country, he appointed a ten-men board to remedy the situation. I will do the same. I will be the chairman of the board.”
Sources: Associated Press, BBC, U.S. Census Bureau, David Brooks: The Fertility Implosion, N.Y. Times
Eric Koch’s new book, The Weimar Triangle, is available at Indigo-Chapters and in your local bookstore. 
