Us & Them and Odds & Ends

The odds of world leaders at odds with one another running into one another at the UN are pretty good.

While President George W. Bush and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are on the outs, and have been avoiding each other like a couple of junior high school girls in a huff over who’s dating whom, President Bush and Former President Bill Clinton did have a chance encounter this week at the UN.

Political differences aside, it’s healthy for current and foreign heads of state to mix and mingle…you need look no further than the rewarding post-official relationship between Clinton and Bush-41 and their Tsunami Relief efforts as proof of this theorem.

Maybe if Bush and Ahmadinejab were to run into each other in the mens’ room, some progress might be made in the ongoing spitting match between the US and Iran…assuming, of course that the Iranian can be taken at his word. The troubling thing about this world leader is that two different messages are coming out of his mouth.

Ahmadinejad told the UN in Tuesday's speech that Iran is a peaceful nation that just wants to be left alone to “stand on its own feet.”
And do what—fund terrorists?

Ahmadinejad told NBC Nightly News that “the U.S. government thinks that it’s still the period after World War II,” in which Bush believes that he “can rule over the rest of the world.”
But in a changing world, other nations want their rights — "equal rights, and fair ones,” according to Ahmadinejad.

Question for the Iranian potentate: Are those rights to be applied evenly to all nations? Remember, Iran is one nation calling for the destruction of another UN member nation—Israel.

More double-speak included this Mahmoudian nugget: “Why is the U.S. government so against our people. They speak of war so easily, as if it’s on their daily agenda. We never speak of war.” Yeah, except for that little notion of wiping Israel off the map…

Ahmadinejad maintains Iran’s nuclear power program is a peaceful one, saying Iran is "against the atomic bomb,” he said. “We believe bombs are used only to kill people. Ahmadinejad said, “We think that people who produce the atomic bomb cannot, in fact, speak of supporting world peace.”

Ahmadinejad accuses the US of hypocrisy in calling for other nations to dismantle their weapons while maintaining the largest military arsenal in the world. Hey, Ahmad—that’s called deterrence—it’s what keeps lesser-prepared, less-restrained power mongers from starting wars in the first place.

Knowing the US has the capability to turn Iran into a vast glass factory in the desert is likely why this maniac hasn’t done anything more foolish than spout double-speak and platitudes.

"Who has the nuclear bomb and has used it before?” asked Ahmadinejad. Read your WW-2 history, Mahmoud, and you’ll note that the regrettable use of nukes brought about the end of that global conflict, not the beginning. Might also want to refresh your memory about that Holocaust thing you continue to deny ever occured.

President Harry Truman’s use of US nuclear might was to short-circuit the bloodshed in the Pacific, and in a case of us or them, he chose to protect the United States. A lesson which should not be lost on the President of Iran.