Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared on Monday that the turmoil on Wall Street was rooted in part in US military intervention abroad and voiced hope that the next American administration would retreat from what he called President Bush’s “logic of force”.

He also asserted, in an interview with The Los Angeles Times, that Israel was doomed like “an airplane that has lost its engine” and that Western intelligence documents questioning the peaceful purpose of Iran’s nuclear programme were crude forgeries.

The UN General Assembly opened its annual session on Monday in a state of alarm over a global financial crisis. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he feared for his effort to secure increased pledges from rich nations to aid the poorest, which are already reeling from higher food and energy prices.

Before joining the annual fall debate, Ahmadinejad sounded a provocative note on the topic during a 40-minute interview with Times editors and a reporter in a Midtown Manhattan hotel suite heavily guarded by agents of the Department of Homeland Security.

“Problems do not arise suddenly,” he said. “The US has made a series of mistakes in the past few decades. First, the imposition on the US economy of heavy military engagement and involvement around the world... the war in Iraq, for example... These are heavy costs.