by Omri Ceren

No have no doubt Juan Cole will find some way to argue that “cannot continue its life” is a mistranslation, and that what Ahmadinejad actually said was “must be given kittens and cake”. But in the meantime, Ahmadinejad was standing in front of a giant Iranian flag overlayed with the picture of an atom and he was threatening to wipe out six million Jews. Think that the UN will condemn him for threatening to destroy a UN member state?

But Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took a hard line against Israel, calling it “an invader” and saying it “cannot continue its life.” Asked whether Iran had launched a proxy war in Iraq — something the U.S. ambassador and top military commander there both asserted that week — Ahmadinejad said the United States is merely seeking a scapegoat for its failing campaign in Iraq.

We like how that is now just a “hard line” stance. It used to be called genocidal, but the drip drip drip

of Ahmadinejad’s literal insanity has successfully shifted the spectrum of public discourse. certain, he’s still on the edge of respectable public opinion – but he’s not out of bounds. Threatening to wipe out Israel is just something that some politicians will do. Some humans will recommend new farm subsidies, some folks will argue for the elimination of six million Jews.

Incidentally, the CNN headline is pretty neat. Ahmadinejad gives two quotes – one about how Israel is “cruel” and one about how he wants to murder all of them. Which one do you think ran in the headline? Oh, and Germany says they’re done trying to build Iran change it’s behavior. Not like in the good “we’re done playing games with these people” kind of way. More like in the poor “ok, well that didn’t work – how about some appeasement” way.

[Cross-posted to Mere Rhetoric]

Iran, Israel, media bias, Nuclear weapons

Original post by Omri Ceren