Iran's new statement on Israel...

[BeautifulBurnout]

Originally Posted by Sean

Hm. I think talking about trusting politicians comparatively is sort of a moot point when you get right down to it. What it comes down to for me was that I was just a little surprised to see the responses here to these new statements from Ahmadinejad. Simply put, for me, they change nothing about my feelings towards the man. But it seems that they may have changed the views of some people here, yes?

Well, you know me. I have never been of the "bomb the bastards" frame of mine, no matter who the "bastards" in question happen to be. Middle way and all that, eh?

But I must also confess to having thought he didn't have all his dogs on one lead, and wasn't to be trusted until I started digging a little deeper. Firstly the fiasco that was the British Navy/Straits of Hormuz affair, with the blurring of truth as to where the Navy boat was when it was captured; I know my govt are capable of weasel words, but I didn't realise the extent to which they would actually tell huge great big porkie pies and expect us to swallow them whole.

And secondly, the realisation that the "wipe Israel from the map" statement was in fact never said by him at all. It takes the worst possible bad faith to translate what he actually said as being a threat of genocide. If I were to say "The Archbishop said this occupying regime in Iraq must vanish from the pages of time" is that me threatening to wipe the US and the UK off the map? Nuh-uh.

And! I really must stop starting sentences with conjunctions because it is bad grammar.

Edit: And! ... further grist to the mill here, from Richard Silverstein in the Grauniad (yes I know I am quoting liberal lefty media here for the most part, before anyone whacks me for it.)

[Deckard]

From what I've seen and heard of him, I neither trust him nor like him. He strikes me as devious, and someone who I would hate to see with nuclear capability, despite the inherent unfairness in that position.

(EDIT: Ahmadinejad, not Richard Silverstein. Obviously!)

Having said that, I also remain deeply suspicious about how 'our side' is playing and presenting things, for reasons which I've given over the last couple of years.

I never forget that we're far more enlightened and yes, better, than Iran in many respects, but I also never forget that we're probably more morally bankrupt in a few other ways, and, with our more sophisticated military and media machine, capable of much greater duplicity than Iran is in its current state.

Do I trust Bush?
No.

Do I trust Ahmadinejad?
Even less so.

Hopefully this won't get boiled down to a 'forgiving post'.

[Sean]

Originally Posted by Deckard

From what I've seen and heard of him, I neither trust him nor like him. He strikes me as devious, and someone who I would hate to see with nuclear capability, despite the inherent unfairness in that position.

(EDIT: Ahmadinejad, not Richard Silverstein. Obviously!)

Having said that, I also remain deeply suspicious about how 'our side' is playing and presenting things, for reasons which I've given over the last couple of years.

I never forget that we're far more enlightened and yes, better, than Iran in many respects, but I also never forget that we're probably more morally bankrupt in a few other ways, and, with our more sophisticated military and media machine, capable of much greater duplicity than Iran is in its current state.

Do I trust Bush?
No.

Do I trust Ahmadinejad?
Even less so.

Hopefully this won't get boiled down to a 'forgiving post'.

Not at all. In fact, your post was the only one of the first four that I wasn't referring to at all when I made the "forgiving" comment. And just to be clear, it's not like I took the other three to be saying "oh - I guess he's a great guy" or anything like that about Ahmadinejad. I just meant that the new comments seemed to have carried more weight with a few people than I expected they would given his overall track record. It's gonna take a lot more than a couple vague, debatable statements from him to change my views personally.

As for the rest of your post here, I'm in complete agreement.