Bear with me for a moment, for what I am about to write is not exactly a popular standpoint. You ready? I don't think President of Iran, Mahmood Ahmedinejad, is evil. Nor do I think he's a threat to anyone, other than to their sanity. My reasons for this are twofold: Firstly, his Grip on Reality: Mahmood Ahmedinejad is not a fan of facts. This, we know. He seems to think Israel should be wiped off the map with tip-ex, that the Holocaust never happened and god knows whatever other myriad of hairbrained theorie he's conjoured.
In fact, so convinced is he that more research needs to be done on if a holocaust has actually occured, late last year he hosted a two day conference in Iran into looking into just that. He even got leading rabbis to attend in order to try and spread his message of doubt, and didn't even blink an eye at being smacked-down by everyone's favorite closet cynic, Anderson cooper [CNN Transcript] [Video Courtesy of The Political Pitbul]. When questioned by the Coop, he swings all over the place about his basis for the doubt, first citing simply the location, then it's connections with "the occupation of Palestine" (aka Israel) and then a "lack of clarity".
Now. I don't know about you, but so far I'm not conjuring an image of a political mastermind here.
I've no doubt that if he were eventually crossed, he would fight back, he may even be looking for an excuse, but, could he come up with a plan? He can organise conferences to dispute known facts, but if push came to shove, would he even be able to tell what directions to point the bombs at? Would his targets change between his brain and his mouth "Syria!" no, they're your friends, Mahmood " "No, Wait, Australia!" "sorry, Austria!" I mean America!" Meanwhile, the explosives decay so much that they'll barely reach the end of the guns.
Does he want to be a threat? Certainly. Could he actually live up to that threat? Only time will tell but personally, I don't think he could organise a piss up in a brewery, let alone a war strategy.
One person he shares the disregard for facts and logic for is the one man he's likely to go up against: George Bush. And look what happened when he tried to plan a nice quick law. "Mission Accomplished", anyone? "There is no civil war in Iraq", perhaps.
My second reason is a lot more obvious and also a lot less credible. The man is permanently happy. I've never seen a person smile so much as ole Mahmood. I imagine to his friends, he's like the Fonz of their pack (look at the collars, hmm?! Hmm!?), eliciting cheers as soon as he comes into view.
Either that, or his face just looks like that.
Nope, clearly he's just a cheeky chappie.
