TEHRAN – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad criticised Western culture on Thursday, saying its people are “lost in a desert of lust,” and also took aim at his own country’s family-planning policy, the Ilna news agency reported. “We do not want man lost in the desert of lust but we want man up in heaven,” he was quoted as telling a group of provincial administrators in the central city of Yazd. Rejecting Iran’s successful family-planning programme, he told Iranians to procreate, boasting an “Iranian-Islamic” development model can “conquer the world.”
“The ‘two kids are enough’ motto belongs to the West’s humanist and liberal system that says ‘children are a nuisance, go have fun’,” he said of a nearly two-decade-old policy that encourages small families and makes contraceptives free of charge. In recent years, Ahmadinejad has mocked the policy on several occasions.
