Addendum:

I would like to add the following editorial to the discussion served in my last post. Today I read an editorial in the Jerusalem Post discussing the implications of the Iranain President's recent remarks. Below is an excerpt and a link. Highlights include the precise reasoning that Iran's nuclear ambitions, unbridled support for radical Islamist terrorism, and what amount to death threats against Israel and the West are not simply isolated qualities, but are part of a larger Iranian world view that sees the outside world as a threat to be eliminated. As I mentioned, such an attitude should not be tolerated.

~JDS

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Beyond Condemnation
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1129540627392&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter

It is not every day that all 15 members of the United Nations Security Council rally to Israel's defense. The wider context of the unanimous vote on Friday condemning Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's calls to "wipe Israel off the map," however, must be concern that condemnations, in this case, are not enough.

Iran's Foreign Ministry has since sought to downplay Ahmadinejad's embarrassing remarks, but only compounded them with a pack of lies, namely that Iran is "committed to its UN charter commitments" and has "never used force against a second country or threatened the use of force." Last we checked, the UN charter does not permit turning the fomenting of terrorism against a range of countries into a staple of a nation's foreign policy. We also fail to see how Iran's repeated - the most recent were not the first - calls to destroy Israel are not "threats of force."

Nor was the Iranian president's call some offhand remark taken out of context. The context was a speech at a conference of students majoring in "world without Zionism" studies, showing that the desire to destroy Israel is being actively developed as a part of a comprehensive ideology by the regime.

Moreover, unlike his diplomats Ahmadinejad seems eager to dispel any ambiguities. On Friday, this time fanning emotions at the anyway virulently anti-Israel "Jerusalem Day" rallies, Ahmadinejad repeated his assertions that Israel is "a blot which must be erased from the map." He seemed to go out of his way to disprove Western delusions that his bark may be worse than his bite. Ahmadinejad in fact keeps barking, as if to underscore that he didn't misspeak and wasn't just carried away by the volatile crowds and the occasion.

As to his bite, Iran is the chief sponsor of Islamic Jihad, the terrorist organization that just murdered five Israelis in Hadera. There is, in addition, no doubt that Iran is involved in the terrorist onslaught that has taken the lives of so many Iraqis, Americans, and others in Iraq...


For the remainder of this piece, please see http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1129540627392&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter