28 Comments

1. Mark_Belt:

How do you soften “wiped off the map”?

Oct 29, 2005 - 7:57 am 2. SMGalbraith:

Yes, the Iranians have modified the remarks.

Instead of “wiping Israel off the map”, the Iranians merely want to “smudge Israel off the map.”

The Europeans welcome this new openess on the part of the Iranian government.

And Russia announces a $10 billion trade agreement with the Tehran government.

And I’m not really sure I’m making any of this up either.

SMG

Oct 29, 2005 - 9:03 am 3. Fausta:

I was doing a little research for my post this morning, and came across this, Iran counts Venezuela as ally amid Israel row

CARACAS, Venezuela: Iran is counting Venezuela as a friend and ally, an Iranian government official said, amid a diplomatic storm set off by comments from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad this week that Israel should be ”wiped off the map.” ”We are two friendly countries, Iran and Venezuela … When one is in need the other supports,” Saeed Jalili, Iran’s Vice Minister of Foreign Relations for Europe and America, said during a visit to Caracas

Allow me to point out that Venezuela’s one of Iran’s axis of good, along with “Russia, China, Algeria, the South African Republic, Mexico, Tunisia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Yemen, Brazil, Sri-Lanka and Vietnam,” according to Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

I haven’t asked Putin what he thinks of all this.

Oct 29, 2005 - 9:27 am 4. Ralf Goergens:

The negotiations of the EU3 with Iran are conducted in agreement with America, useless as these talks are.

And it’s not just Iranian oil that is at stake::

In Saudi Arabia, Shiites make up about 10 percent of the population, but the kingdom’s official brand of Islam is the hard-line Wahhabi sect that brands Shiites as infidels. In the past, activists have been imprisoned, and Shiites were barred from the top tiers of government. But last May, a dozen Shiite leaders took the unusual step of presenting a petition to Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah seeking equal political and religious rights.

The Saudi government is particularly sensitive about Shiite autonomy because the minority is concentrated in the oil-rich Eastern province, and any unrest or effort at secession might devastate Saudi oil production. A year after the war in Iraq, the Saudi regime has reached out to Shiite leaders.

Iranian agents among the Saudi Shia could stir up a lot of trouble, right where the Saudis get the most oil out of the ground.

Meanwhile the Russians are selling Iran missiles:

Russians help Iran with missile threat to Europe

By Con Coughlin

(Filed: 16/10/2005)

Former members of the Russian military have been secretly helping Iran to acquire technology needed to produce missiles capable of striking European capitals.

The Russians are acting as go-betweens with North Korea as part of a multi-million pound deal they negotiated between Teheran and Pyongyang in 2003. It has enabled Teheran to receive regular clandestine shipments of top secret missile technology, believed to be channelled through Russia.

…

A senior American official said Iran’s programme was “sophisticated and getting larger and more accurate. They have had very much in mind the payload needed to carry a nuclear weapon.

“I think Putin knows what the Iranians are doing.”

Oct 29, 2005 - 9:31 am 5. kpom:

Have the Europeans really thought through what happens if Iran gets nukes, and then continues to issue threats to destroy a nuclear power (Israel)?

Wouldn’t you think that the EU would take real measures to stop Iran, rather than have to deal with this?

One does wonder what the Russians are up to – one would think that putting nuclear weapons into the hands of Islamic crazies would not be viewed as a Good Thing in the Kremlin – even if it meant forgoing sales of a couple of nuclear reactors. What do they think the Chechens would do with a nuclear weapon, if they could smuggle one into Moscow? I’m sure the current Iranian government has assured them that they wouldn’t give nukes to anti-Russian terrorists, but would you want to trust those assurances over the long term?

Oct 29, 2005 - 9:40 am 6. Mehran:

As an Iranian of – sadly – Muslim birth (though not practising, thank Allah!) I am very embarrassed and ashamed of the comments of the so-called president of my wretched country. If anybody deserves to be wiped off the face of the earth it is the odious Islamic republic and the hairy monsters who run it.

I don’t know if I’ll be entirely happy about an invasion of the country, and seeing the Bush administration bogged down in Iraq I don’t know if they’ll want to embark on another adventure any time soon either.

On the other hand we cannot sit on our hands and wait for these nutters to develop their nuclear weapons to see if they mean what they say or not.

Something has to be done – and done soon.

Oct 29, 2005 - 9:50 am 7. michael ledeen:

you gotta admire the chutzpa of these murderous bastards. “It stood by its U.N. commitments and would not use violence against another country.”

this after weeks of revelations of iranian support for the terrorists in iraq…

Oct 29, 2005 - 10:42 am 8. richard mcenroe:

Come now, it’s not as if he said Paris or Berlin… he’s certainly gonna come for them last. They have plenty of time to develop a nuanced response…

Oct 29, 2005 - 10:44 am 9. Mike_Nargizian:

Re: Russia

Last night on WABC770AM there was a reporter/expert on about Russia who said that Putin is basically Stalin lite. The US can’t back down and expose him though bcs of the way they have embraced him. Other than the strong arm tactics and lack of free press and democracy in Russia they think that Putin was behind the attempted assassination of Yushenko. (spelling)

Not that Yushenko is such a great guy as it turns out anyway, btw.

Also, Russia has always been and still is on the side of the US’s enemies. I was told, I don’t know how accurately, that during Gulf War I Israel broke Russia’s codes (they had them?) and it left Russia and of course Syria (its client state) completely vulnerable to Israel.

Re: Iran

Not only will normal Oil dealings continue, are you kidding me?, but the EU will just try to avoid completely the topic of Iran’s nucleur program to avoid looking so pathetic. They’ll just hope that in a while people will sordove forget about the comments and then they can go back to the farce show without looking too pathetic. Maybe if something happens they can condemn Israel which would lessen the impact of people asking how they could be so pathetic in regards to Iran.

Oct 29, 2005 - 11:18 am 10. Mike_Nargizian:

Richard Dick Silverstein’s “analysis’ (hatchet job) of PAJAMAS MEDIA AND ITS BOARD MEMBERS and an article that actually cites his ‘analysis’.

DAILY SCORECARD REPORTS

Dick Silverstein is obsessed (see envious of) with Pajamas Media and smearing its contributors including Roger, Charles, Solomon, Protein Wisdom, Michael Totten and others….

Check out just some of the personal comments Dick left in his own comments section summarized in my post.

Their lunacy, hypocrisy and ‘moral superiority’ are too tasty to miss.

UPDATE:

HELP -

Richard Silverstein has re-directed my links to his post at my blog to back to my own site. Is there anything I can do to fix that? That is your forte and any help would be appreciated. Please email me. THANKS – MIKE

Oct 29, 2005 - 11:20 am 11. Former CNN Watcher:

UN Debates Meaning of

Oct 29, 2005 - 12:46 pm 12. Anthony (Los Angeles):

Of course, to go back to business as usual, they’ll have to ignore statements made by Ahmadinejad (Farsi for “I want to be just like “Dolph” when I grow up.) and others asserting that they mean exactly what they said.

Shouldn’t be any problem for the European Three. :/

Oct 29, 2005 - 1:07 pm 13. Mike_Nargizian:

Great entry on the Iranian statements?

http://dailyscorecard.blogspot.com/2005/10/whole-wiping-them-out-thing.html

Quotes Sandmonkey – very witty and funny.

Oct 29, 2005 - 1:14 pm 14. JeremyR:

I think you are being far to generous to Europe, in thinking that they ever considered those statements to be a problem.

Go read the “Have your say section” over on the BBC website:

http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?sortBy=1&threadID=131&start=0&tstart=0&edition=1&ttl=20051029211202&#paginator

When I read it yesterday, the vast majority of the posters were either agreeing with Iran (that Israel should be wiped off the map) or apologizing for them.

Oct 29, 2005 - 1:15 pm 15. dougf:

Of course, for the last several hundred years Russia has consistently acted against its own self-interest while thinking it is outfoxing everybody else.

I don’t know about several hundred but certainly for the last century, Russia’s foreign policies have been ‘questionable’ at the very least.

I thought Putin was at least clever. How dealing with Islamic nutbars is in Russia’s interst is a complete mystery to me. They would have much more to gain from seeing the mullahs and their followers decorating Tehran lamposts. Iran would still want to deal with Russian and the Islamists would be GONE.

EVERY Russian leader is authoritarian but what the Russians desperately need and want is a SMART authoritarian. Don’t they have ANY?

Sigh .

Oct 29, 2005 - 1:24 pm 16. Kevin P:

Roger:

Death to Israel one day, we are peacefull law abiding people the next. This is nothing new. This has been going on all over the ME for decades. Arafat’s favorite pastime was preaching bloodlust in Arabic, peace talk in English. Look at the comments link at the BBC that Jeremy gave us. The vast majority of the negative language is about Israel. Of course!

Iran’s president can repeat his promise of genocide anytime he wants. Kofi was disturbed, Blair at least gave a reasonable condemnation, but the rest of Europe will wag their fingers and not change a single thing in their relationship with Iran.Nothing. The U.N. is the land of words with nothing behind them. At most they will delay a meeting or two but the Mullahs know this is all for show and they can continue their death threats towards Israel for as long as they want. Kofi and the U.N may be dismayed with Iran’s open and honest statements of their foreign policy goes but what will the U.N. do? At most they will take a couple years to to issue a statement that will be watered down and include two or three statements about Israel’s responsibility for making the Muslim governments of the region want to kill them.

Oct 29, 2005 - 1:37 pm 17. Sandy P:

The Pakis are going to Israel to play soccer, according to Bros. Judd:

A 200-member delegation of Pakistani officials and businessmen is to visit Israel in early November, in a bid to bring closer the two countries which have no diplomatic relations, Israeli military radio said.Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom are to receive the Pakistani delegation of retired generals, religious leaders, politicians and business people, radio said, though there was no official confirmation.Relations between the second most populous Muslim country and the Jewish state were hostile for decades, but began to warm up after Israel offered aid to Pakistan following this month’s devastating earthquake.

Pakistan accepted Israel’s offer, in a sign that the sole Muslim nuclear power was cautiously warming to better ties with Israel.

Oct 29, 2005 - 1:38 pm 18. miguelj:

Other blogs have wondered why Iran is saying this now, and have speculated that it has to do with some impending crackdown against internal enemies.

Could not this be discreetly steered in a salutary direction? What if, say, 20% of the Iranian leadership are actually secret Zionists? The mullahs really need to scrutinize each other waay more closely. They are too trusting, that’s their whole trouble. This guy Khameini for instance: didn’t his name used to be Kaminsky? If memory serves, didn’t I attend his bris, back in the days?

Oct 29, 2005 - 1:49 pm 19. Terrye:

In a strange and perverse way the Russians and Iranians deserve each other.

Neither country seems to be able to avoid self destruction.

Oct 29, 2005 - 2:54 pm 20. Rick Ballard:

Terrye,

I think it is incumbent upon the US not to allow Iran to engage in self-destruction. How could we be sure that they did a thorough job? Let’s not leave this to DIYer’s. The 4ID didn’t get to blow too many things up in Iraq due to Turkey’s intransigence – let’s give them the chance to show how effective they can be. They’re heading over in January and should be able to wrap the job up by May 1st.

Oct 29, 2005 - 4:37 pm 21. Mike_Nargizian:

ISLAMIC JIHAD and FATAH Offshoot Hold Press Conference Celebrating Hadera Suicide Bombing

DailyScorecard Posts

Sources close to the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the military wing of Abbas’ Fatah movement…..

“Al Aqsa let Islamic Jihad take full responsibility so they could get the credit for retaliating against Israel’s killing of their leaders. Jihad needs this attack. But Al Aqsa was involved, too.”

Oct 29, 2005 - 6:49 pm 22. Mike_Nargizian:

Arab League/Nations Rejected a Saddam Exile Plan Prior to the War

Deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had secretly accepted a last-minute plan to go into exile to avert the 2003 Iraq war, but Arab leaders shot the proposal down, Al Arabiya television reported today.

Oct 29, 2005 - 7:01 pm 23. John Moore ( Useful Fools ):

The sentiments of the Iranian president are not new – just as Chinese generals threatening to nuke LA are not unusual.

Let us not forget that in Dec 2002, Ayatollah Rafsanjani, the “#2 Ayatollah” (and hence someone who outranks the president) said (in a cryptic fashion) that wiping out Israel is so important that it would be worth the loss of a few hundred million Muslims in Israel’s doomsday counterstrike, because there would be plenty of Muslims left.

I recommend to those not adequately scared by the Islamofascists such as the Iranian and Al Qaeda leadership, that they read

The West’s Last Chance / Will We Win the Clash of Civilizations. This is especially good reading for Europeans and multiculturalists and civil libertarians of all stripes.

It will scare you to death – more than any threat by an Iranian “leader.”

Oct 29, 2005 - 7:36 pm 24. SMGalbraith:

I can’t recall who first observed this – perhaps Hannah Arendt – but it’s said that the second generation of a government borne out of revolution is the most dangerous.

The first generation is focused internally on consolidating power and eliminating opposition, both real and imagined. All of their energies and time is devoted to suppressing dissent and ridding the cause of enemies. It’s quite an enterprise.

Having secured power, the next generation then turns its attention outward to new threats, new enemies of the cause, again both real and imagined.

This is the most dangerous generation, for it no longer satisfies itself with domestic concerns.

Cf., France after 1789, Soviet Union after 1917 (the Comintern et cetera)

SMG

Oct 30, 2005 - 6:30 am 25. Jamie Irons:

A few days ago I commented briefly on our proclivity to wish this threat away by ignoring it:

Let’s Pretend…

Roger writes:

Obviously in a panic, the Iranian Foreign Ministry has had to walk back from the delusional remarks of their country’s president.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry is helping us to keep pretending.

Jamie Irons

Oct 30, 2005 - 8:02 am 26. thibaud:

Putin is not “Stalin lite.” The man barely has control over his own chaotic government, let alone his crumbling nation. The best analogy for Putin is Musharraf, with rogue elements of the FSB (former KGB), the military, the energy complex and the customs service in the role of Pakistan’s treacherous ISI.

Best to think of Russia as a failed state that happens to have nearly one-third of the world’s natural gas (giving the Russians a lock on Germany and Italy) and more oil reserves than anyone but the Saudis. Nigeria North.

Buckle your seatblets.

Oct 30, 2005 - 11:44 am 27. thibaud:

Correct above to failing, not failed state. The government respects its neighbors’ borders, still preserves its monopoly on violence and delivers some basic goods. But it cannot collect taxes, pay pensions, pass and enforce laws, and above all, cannot deliver on any promises of responsible international behavior re Iran NKor etc because the man in the Kremlin simply does not call shots. He’s a puppet.

Oct 30, 2005 - 11:46 am 28. Neo:

The Israel statements were bad enough, but that not all that was said.

Don’t miss this reference:

“There are 29 sensitive sites in the U.S. and in the West. We have already spied on these sites and we know how we are going to attack them.”

Oct 30, 2005 - 9:32 pm

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