Thanks for your emails on the Cole-Hitchens fight. The deeper argument is whether we should take Ahmadinejad’s threats in any way seriously. Last month, Ahmadinejad said the following:
"Like it or not, the Zionist regime is heading toward annihilation. The Zionist regime is a rotten, dried tree that will be eliminated by one storm." … He did not say how this would be achieved, but insisted to the audience of at least 900 people: "Believe that Palestine will be freed soon."
We are told that Ahmadinejad has no power. What about the organizer of Iran’s latest war-game, Mohammad Ebrahim Dehghani, a top commander in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards? How about Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, the runner-up to Ahmadinejad in the rigged Iranian elections of 2005? He was Iran’s president from 1989 – 1997. According to Wiki, he
is currently the Chairman of the Expediency Discernment Council, that resolves legislative issues between the Parliament and the Council of Guardians and advises the supreme leader on matters of national policy.
In 2001, at the height of his powers, Rafsanjani made the following remarks in a speech to fellow Islamists:
"If a day comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in possession, the strategy of colonialism would face a stalemate because application of an atomic bomb would not leave any thing in Israel but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world."
We are told not to take any of this seriously. And the Tehran theocrats may well be bluffing about their current and future capacity. I don’t think we should take the bait they are currently offering us, and react excessively to their provocations. I certainly don’t favor pre-emptive military action at this point. But that the mullahs would nuke Israel if they could seems to me well within the bounds of possibility. How many genocidal dictators in history do we need to ignore or explain away before we take them at their word?
(Photo: Irna/AFP/Getty Images).
The Dish 