Iran Means What It Says

Michael Rubin: Iran Means What It Says:

...Europe should not be shocked, however. Ahmadinejad’s sentiments were nothing new. Exactly four years before Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust-denial, Expediency Council Chairman ‘Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani took the podium at Tehran University to deliver the Friday sermon, the official weekly policy statement of the Iranian government. In what should have been a wake-up call for any who believes that the Islamic Republic and the norms of Western society are compatible, Rafsanjani declared, “If one day, the Islamic world is also equipped with weapons like those that Israel possesses now, then the imperialists’ strategy will reach a standstill because the use of even one nuclear bomb inside Israel will destroy everything… It is not irrational to contemplate such an eventuality.” U.S. and European analysts rationalized Rafsanjani’s remarks, suggesting that he referred to self-defense only. Tellingly, though, many Iranian parliamentarians understood the Expediency Council Chairman to mean what he said: Threatening offensive use of a nuclear weapon. ...

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Posted by Andrew Jaffee at January 2, 2006 10:40 AM