We’re as surprised as anyone, because we thought that the previous five or six dozen times were just jokes:
Say what you will about him, the man certainly has a certain style – it’s the rare genocidal dictator who would talk about “pushing the button” in the context of wiping out six million Jews with nuclear weapons. “Rare” or “anyone with the knowledge that the world will do very, very little to actually intervene”. Arab and Muslim dictators have actually been brazenly playing this game for more than four decades now – at the even of the Six Day War, Nasser and Assad were boasting into any microphone that they could find that they were going to “push the Jews into the sea” and “wash the streets of Tel Aviv with Jewish blood”. Then, as now, a diplomatic solution given almost indefinite time failed, and Israel had to defend itself militarily.
For what it’s worth, Spain is calling for strong action in response to Ahmadinejad’s latest boast (a boast, by the by, that he made in a meeting of foreign dignitaries. Diplomatic scuttlebutt has it that they’re considering docking the Iranian ambassador’s lunch money.
References:
* Ahmadinejad: Israel’s destruction close [JPost]
* Spanish FM slams Iranian president’s anti-Israel rhetoric [JPost]
Previously:
* Ahmadinejad: Israel Doomed to Destruction
* Ahmadinejad Just Threatened To Wipe Out Israel, Attack the EU and the US
* Matt Yglesias Compares Bush to Ahmadinejad. Unfavorably.
