Ahmadinejad, who in October said arch-enemy Israel should be “wiped off the map”

There’s plenty more…does anyone have a correction from the Arabic press that matches Cole’s “expertise”?

Ahmadinejad’s comments were the first time in years that such a high-ranking Iranian official has called for Israel’s eradication, even though such slogans are still regularly used at government rallies.

Oh, if only I were as smart as William, Hitchens and the “war mongers” and could just take people at their “word.”

Between half-hearted 2 line posts and the occasional goofy link to articles that either prove nothing or actually wind up countering their position, the trolls don’t even seem to be trying anymore. Could this be the end of Groundhog Day?

Had we followed that rationale during the Cold War, when the Soviets were threatening to wipe us off the map every day, there’d be no world left to defend.

The question is not, do we take every madman at his word. The question is, do we believe said madman can follow through on his threat. In the case of Iran and Ahmendijad, the answer is no.

Did that comment make any sense to anybody else?

My only guess at a possible interpretation of that quite cryptic statement is that “Hitchens and the ‘war mongers’ take at word”, that word being that Iran is committed as a singular national will to the destruction of Israel and America. (I will proceed on this basis, but if I am in error, please correct me.)

In the first place, as Dr. Cole points out, never mind that that “word” is inaccurately translated (that it conveniently suits a narrative that the warmonger neocons desperately wish to create may or may not be coincidental).

In the second place, pay no attention to the fact that the same warmonger neocons now agitating for war with Iran because of its ‘singular national purpose’ of Israeli and American annihilation, ordered by the all-powerful supreme generalissimo Ahmedinijad, are the same people who argued that the previous moderate, reformist president Khatami was nothing but a powerless figurehead, devoutly to be ignored. The fact is Ahmedinijad is far less able to order operations by his military than Wee Emperor W is ours.

In the third place, also pay no attention to the fact that large swaths of Iranian society, especially its youth, are favorable toward America (as evidenced by Cole’s photographs of Iranian youth holding a post 9/11 candlelight vigil). If you are to believe that the Iranians are all screaming Islamofascist zealots, which helps if you’re trying to convince Americans that we should be bombing the hell out of them, this picture is slightly problematic. And it further reinforces what a tragedy the war our leaders are agitating for would be, because it would pretty much quash any hope of these young, reformist elements being able to guide the country in the future.