Still waiting for someone to actually refute these quotes. I guess we all know he did actually say these things.
I'm sure you can give references for each of those quotes. And yes, they're vile, disgusting
** looks for Roget's to find more synonyms
especially the Holocaust denial ones, and, to add, his "Holocaust conference" was a sick joke.
So there can be no more confusion about the President of Iran's true intentions about Israel, here are some of his exciting quotes about the Jewish state. (the "wipe off the map" quote is purposefully not included)
You omitted that one because of the controversy over the translation?
I respect the Iranian people, but this man cannot be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. If the West doesn't have the stomach for the job...the Jews will handle it.
In the end, he'll not be the one to have the red button, but more about that below. And I guess you mean "the Israelis will handle it"?
Israel can do quite well without the measily $3 billion in yearly aid. Its just a nice extra...and a bribe for the 1982 peace treaty with Egypt.
That's for another discussion, but I note there's quite a lot of poverty in Israel for a western nation. Socio-economic issues have been put on the backburner for decades in politics in favour of security.
Anyway, Ahmedinajad seeks the physical annihilation of Israel.
There's no doubt about his Holocaust denial in his statements. His statements about Israel, how hateful they may be, though, seem more to have the tone "Israel's disappearance/dissolution is inevitable" than the tone "guys, help wipe Israel off the face of the earth". Only nr. 12 speaks of actual humans fighting with Israel. I'm reminded of a story of Skeptic's, where he asked an Israeli Arab who said similar things if he'd be a martyr for the cause. "Of course not", replied the Arab, "let Allah take care of it; I've gotta earn my daily bread".
Though Tim has taken the interesting tactic of instead of refuting their legitimacy, stating that while they may be true, they are irrelevant due to Ahmedinajad's actual influence in Iran.
I would like to think that if he actually has little power in Iran, and was just a noisy yet powerless figurehead, the CIA and Mossad would be well aware of that.
Yet somehow, for some reason, they seem to think his views and statements are dangerous.
Ahmedinajad has little power. The actual power is vested in the Supreme Leader and the Council of Guardians. Why the CIA or the Mossad? The Foreign Offices know this all too well; hell, even wiki knows it:
[qimg]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/94/Schema_gvt_iran_en.png[/qimg]
I'll be honest, I don't complete trust the Mossad. But I do trust our CIA. I have seen ZERO evidence that even some far off wing of the CIA considers Iran to be nothing to worry about. Even before the Iraq War started, we knew about CIA doubts about WMDs in Iraq.
I'm surprised at this. I'd rather trust the Mossad in the quality of their intelligence and even their (internal) judgement, than the CIA, which has bungled quite a lot the last 20 years and have shown a profound lack of field operatives knowledgeable with local customs and languages and instead rely on guys behind computers in Langley.
And the fact is, if two years from now, Iran fires a nuclear tipped missile towards Israel, Israel's defenses fail, and a nuclear explosion destroys Tel Aviv and a million Israelis with it..they would be dancing in the streets of Tehran, Baghdad, Beirut, and Amman for weeks on end.
It'll take Iran much more than 2 years to develop a bomb. I doubt there would be many people dancing in the streets when they see an actual mushroom cloud, let alone when they see the effects of the fall-out on Nablus and Ramallah. Lastly, I don't think the Iranian government - Ahmadinejad included - would be so stupid to actually use a bomb against Israel. It would not bring them anything useful, and it carries the almost certain risk of retaliation with deadly consequences for Iran.
ETA: my impression is that Ahmadinejad's anti-Israel rhetoric is primarily meant to gain influence in the Middle East, e.g., with Hezbollah and Hamas. Let's not forget that Persia is, in various incarnations, an old nation, and its eye on influence to its west go at least back to the days of Cyrus the Great.
To end on a provocative note: I think it's very strange, to say the least, that the only state in the world that has nuclear weapons but doesn't admit it, censures and even contemplates action against another state that may try to acquire them.