Clinton vs. Obama: Nuke, Nuke, Nuke Iran?

Scott, I agree with all of the above whole-heartedly, except for the following:

Of course, we do have the threat of President Ahmadinejad to "wipe Israel off the map."

This is the biggest lie of all. I speak Farsi. I HATE this Iranian regime. But, I can tell you, with 100% certainty, that Ahmadinejad did NOT threaten to wipe Israel off the map. This youtube video is an explanation of what is true and accurate:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mScWWtRfGQ

His words have been twisted and redacted for propaganda. The media is supposed to diminish, not support, ignorance. As a Bureau Chief I hope this is something that you can make sure Time.com reporters don't report inaccurately again.

-Nick

Nick:

Many thanks as usual for your comment. I would agree that Ahmadinejad's statement has been used and misused in various quarters. For you and other interested readers I would just relay the following further info concerning the actual statement he made.

This is from the full translation of Ahmadinejad's full speech on Oct. 26, 2005 at a conference called "The World Without Zionism," by Nazila Fathi of the New York Times.

"Our dear Imam said that the occupying regime must be wiped off the map and this was a very wise statement. We cannot compromise over the issue of Palestine."

In my interview with Ahmadinejad on Sept. 9, 2006, just prior to his highly publicized speech at the U.N., I asked him to clarify whether he made the statement and, if he had made it, whether he sincerely meant what he said. He seemed to downplay and clarify the statement but despite the opportunity I offered him to do so, he made no effort to claim he had been misquoted or misunderstood.

"TIME: You have been quoted as saying Israel should be wiped off the map. Was that merely rhetoric, or do you mean it?
AHMADINEJAD: People in the world are free to think the way they wish. We do not insist they should change their views. Our position toward the Palestinian question is clear: we say that a nation has been displaced from its own land. Palestinian people are killed in their own lands, by those who are not original inhabitants, and they have come from far areas of the world and have occupied those homes. Our suggestion is that the 5 million Palestinian refugees come back to their homes, and then the entire people on those lands hold a referendum and choose their own system of government. This is a democratic and popular way. Do you have any other suggestions?"

Would Iran Use the Bomb?
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad believes the most important task of the Iranian Revolution was to prepare the way for the return of the Twelfth Imam, who disappeared in 874, bringing an end to Muhammad’s lineage. This imam, the Mahdi or “divinely guided one,” Shiites believe, will return in an apocalyptic battle in which the forces of righteousness will defeat the forces of evil and bring about a new era in which Islam ultimately becomes the dominant religion throughout the world. The Shiites have been waiting patiently for the Twelfth Imam for more than a thousand years, but Ahmadinejad believes he can now hasten the return through a nuclear war. Ayatollah Hussein Nuri Hamdani explicitly said in 2005 that “the Jews should be fought against and forced to surrender to prepare the way for the coming of the Hidden Imam.” It is this apocalyptic world view, Middle East scholar Bernard Lewis notes, that distinguishes Iran from other governments with nuclear weapons.

Lewis quotes a passage from Ayatollah Khomeini cited in an 11th grade Iranian schoolbook, “I am decisively announcing to the whole world that if the world-devourers [the infidel powers] wish to stand against our religion, we will stand against the whole world and will not cease until the annihilation of all of them. Either we all become free, or we will go to the greater freedom, which is martyrdom. Either we shake one another’s hands in joy at the victory of Islam in the world, or all of us will turn to eternal life and martyrdom. In both cases, victory and success are ours.”

There are those who think that Muslims would never use such weapons against Israel because innocent Muslims would be killed as well, but Saddam Hussein did not hesitate to use poison gas on his own people. During the war in Lebanon in 2006, Hezbollah did not worry that rocketing cities with large Arab populations such as Haifa and Nazareth would kill non-Jews (and 24 of the 52 Israeli casualties were non-Jews). Muslims murder each other every day in post-Saddam Iraq. And Iran fought a ten-year war with Iraq in which as many as one million Muslims were killed. Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani explicitly said he wasn’t concerned about fallout from an attack on Israel. “If a day comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in possession,” he said “the strategy of colonialism would face a stalemate because application of an atomic bomb would not leave any thing in Israel but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world.” As even one Iranian commentator noted, Rafsanjani apparently wasn’t concerned that “the destruction of the Jewish State would also means the mass killing of the Palestinian population as well.”

Iran would never launch a nuclear attack against Israel, some argue because, as the old Sting song used to say about the Russians, the Iranians “love their children too.” In the days of the Cold War we used to refer to this idea as MAD or Mutually Assured Destruction. No Muslim leader would risk an Israeli counterstrike that might destroy them. MAD also doesn’t work, however, if the Iranians believe there will be destruction anyway at the end of time. What matters, Bernard Lewis observed, is if the infidels go to hell and believers go to heaven. And if you believe that killing the nonbelievers will earn you a place in Paradise with 72 virgins, what difference does it make if you go out in a blaze of glory as a suicide bomber or in the shadow of a mushroom cloud?

Optimists also suggest the Iranians are driven more by rationality than theology and would not risk using nuclear weapons. Others believe they are irrational and therefore cannot be trusted to hold their fire. One does not have to believe the Iranians are irrational, however, to foresee the possibility of an attack on Israel with nuclear weapons. Rafsanjani, the President of Iran before the current one, was just as adamant about destroying Israel as his successor. Contrary to the old aphorism that you can’t win a nuclear war, he argued that Iran could achieve victory. He said that “ Israel is much smaller than Iran in land mass, and therefore far more vulnerable to nuclear attack.” Since Iran has 70 million people and Israel only has seven million, Rafsanjani believed Iran could survive an exchange of nuclear bombs while Israel would be annihilated. The rhetoric was bombastic, but he and other Iranian leaders might first consider the possibility that Israel could conceivably launch far more missiles and the outcome might be very different than he imagined.

Rafsanjani is correct about Israel’s vulnerability. Besides the population difference, the disparity in size of the countries is such that it does not take a whole arsenal of ICBMS like the old Soviet Union had to destroy Israel; Iran need only have three crude bombs to attack Israel’s three major population centers – Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem – and it’s goodbye Israel.

Iran will not have to use nuclear weapons to influence events in the region. By possessing a nuclear capability, the Iranians can deter Israel or any other nation from attacking Iran or its allies. When Hezbollah attacked Israel in 2006, for example, a nuclear Iran could have threatened retaliation against Tel Aviv if Israeli forces bombed Beirut. The mere threat of using nuclear weapons would be sufficient to drive Israelis into shelters and could cripple the economy. What foreign investors will want to risk their money going up in the smoke of a mushroom cloud? Will immigrants want to come to a country that lives in the shadow of annihilation? Will Israelis accept the risk? Israeli leaders will have to decide if they can risk calling the Iranians’ bluff.

Scott,

Finally, I can fulfill my lifelong dream of subtitling a Napoleon-complexed loudmouth. I'll take the exact quote you mention above at the 2005 conference, from Ahmadinejad's mouth in Farsi, and translate it word for word to English for all of your readers' benefits. I am doing a literal translation -- there are no metaphors here, and I have no intention of protecting the current Iranian regime or Ahmadinejad.

In a phonetic of the Farsi:
"Een rejim-eh isghalghar-eh qods bayad az safheh-ye ruzegar mahv shavad."

1st word - "Een": this
2nd word - "rejim-eh": regime
3rd word - "isghalghar-eh": occupying
4th word - "qods": Jerusalem
5th word - "bayad": must
6th word - "az": from
7th word prefix - "safheh": page (does not mean map)
8th word suffix - "ye": of
9th word: "ruzegar": time (does not mean anything else)
10th word: "mahv": disappear (we can loosely translate this as wipe)
11th word: "shavad": should

Now, to un-yoda this translation:

"This regime occupying Jerusalem must disappear from the page of time."

Rest assured, the words "map" and "Israel" were not uttered by Ahmadinejad in that one moment in time. Nor did the context lend it's hand to the chicken-little like escapades of some members of the media. Like I stated before, there are other power brokers more powerful than Ahmadinejad in Iran. Shouldn't we ask, "Have Zionist factions ever threatened to overthrow the Iranian regime?" Sounds more to me like a tit for tat, and Ahmadinejad is just one of many factions in Iran.

But somehow, his translation was annexed to Iranian intentions of blowing Israel sky-high with imaginary "nuke-ee-ler" weapons... can you see why Nazila Fathi of the New York Times should, at least, relinquish his title as the undisputed king of Persian translation?

See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmCIw5lPi-M

Nick,

A helpful contribution. (And funny, too!) Many thanks.

Thanks for the enlightening post nk+...

http://www.thefaithdebate.com
http://www.thefaithdebate.com
http://www.thefaithdebate.com

Suddenly it becomes fashionable to use the word “obliterate”, which means “destroy something completely” or “reduce it to nothingness” – an exceptionally forceful term indeed.

The Iran President wants to obliterate Israel, the US presidential candidate wishes to obliterate Iran. So Iran yearns to destroy all the Israelis completely, and the US desires to reduce the Iranians to nothingness. Could this actually be done unilaterally without deadly global consequences?

Nonsensical rhetoric can be big news, albeit short-lived. Let sanity prevail, the world has already had more than enough of its share of lunacy and imbecility for a long time.

Blackjack

Can you point to any precise and conclusive evidence which proves that Ahmadijad wants to use nukes to obliterate isreal in order to hasten the coming of the 12th imam.

No, thought not. Your biased meaningless rethoric annoys most sensible people who read these blogs

At what point is Iran questioned about its words and deeds.

No, Ahmadinejad has not come out and point-blank stated that he wants to obliterate Israel with a nuclear weapon, wether to bring about the 12th Mahdi or just for pure nationalistic reasons.

However, since 1979, we have listened to Iranians chant 'Death to Israel' on a weekly basis in the mosques at the Friday services. Murgh bar Yahud! Murgh bar America! And while not as explicit as Saddam's 1990 threat to burn half of Israel by fire, Ahmadinejad's comments are close enough, especially when taken in conjunction with his Holocaust denial stance.

Toss in Iran's support of Hizballah to the point where Iran is setting up state of the art intelligence gathering devices on the border, and arming the militia with strategic military weapons such as the Zil Zal missiles.

Add in its arming of the PA (the Karine-A shipment) and now training of HAMAS, puts Iran's intentions into a clearer focus.

Is it a smoking gun? Probably not, but enough to raise the level of concern even if the regime is not bent on a messianic jihad.

Now, is Iran working on a bomb? Maybe. In last week's NY Times science section, there is a detailed article on Iran's nuclear activities, including a photo-op tour by Ahamdinejad. Included in the guest list was Iran's minister of defense, an interesting point given Iran's claims that its nuclear program is solely of a civilian nature.

Is the Iranian government led by a caricature boogey man? Well, let's see, in addition to his 'green light' UN speech, his anti-Zionist kick, Holocaust denial, complete with anti-Semitic political cartoon exhibition, and his 'no gays in Iran' speech at Columbia University, makes for, if not an 'American Cowboy' caricature, raises concerns given his Revolutionary Guard past.

Now, one can say that the real power is held by the Mullah's, led by Ayatollah Khamanei, and that group, despite their religious cloak, are real-politiks of the old school. And yet, they too, have pushed the anti-Israel rhetoric to the hilt, and are certainly involved in the active military activities against Israel mentioned above.

Suffice to say, the history of Iran, especially towards Israel, places a context around the Democratic candidates, that while maybe pandering rhetoric, also suggests to Iran that indeed, there are teeth behind the relationship between Israel and the US, which just might give some of the more extreme segments of its government pause, when deciding whether or not to push its next military adventure, and hopefully keep mistakes to a minimum.

Remember, Hizballah's Nassrallah didn't expect to have a war on his hands. He only thought he could kill a few Israeli's and kidnap a few more. When playing with possible nuclear scenarios, its better to be clear than muddled.

Jacob, you made very good points and are correct in many aspects. However, I wish that you searched further with your point about Iran's history. The Islamic Iranian regime's stance towards Israel and America is a direct result of the 1953 CIA-led coup of the then nascent democracy in Iran. This was directly after Iran became the 2nd nation in the world to recognize the state of Israel. They chant "Death to America" and "Death to Israel" because, to them, they are factions of the West intent on keeping Iran in the dark ages. Above all, the anti-American (and, by association, the Israeli) rhetoric coming from ANYWHERE in the Middle East has to do with our interventionist policies in the internal affairs of sovereign countries. This is something that cannot be refuted.

Again, I am highly critical of the Iranian regime and wish for nothing more than their upheaval. But, I am also protective of the truth. I was in the audience at Columbia University for Ahmadinejad's visit and heard what he said, in Farsi, about homosexuals. He did not say, "Gays do not exist in Iran." His translator did not think of the consequences of a sloppy translation like that. A more accurate translation would be, "In Iran, gays cannot exist." He wasn't being stupid, he was being highly discriminatory on the basis of sexual orientation and Sharia law (not so different from conservatives in America, huh?). The difference being that the media used the sloppy translation, yet again, to paint Ahmadinejad as a madman, as they have done with countless other political leaders who America has gone to war with in the past. In addition, he never hosted an "anti-semitic" political cartoon exhibition as you state, but rather an exhibition to parody the politics of the United States and Israel. I would like to see evidence as to why you thought it was an anti-Semitic exhibition specifically. Finally, Ahmadinejad did not deny that a holocaust happened, but rather, said that the holocaust did not have the statistical significance, nor did it threaten the extinction of the Jews, as most of our textbooks here in the US claim. He simply asked for a discussion.

I hope that you'll concede that there is something fascist about telling people they can't dare speak out about certain subjects. Again, a disclaimer -- I never said that it wasn't tasteless to hold such a forum. It should be noted that several anti-Zionist Orthodox Jews attended the forum as well.

Just to open your eyes as to what it really is like to be a Jew in Iran, please read the following article, http://www.payvand.com/news/08/may/1016.html , which states, "A Jewish delegate said he had been told to be careful: "They might shoot you if they find out you're Jewish." He was amazed to see Jews worshiping openly and walking down a street in Tehran wearing their yarmulkes. He wasn't shot, but was mobbed by the worshipers at a synagogue who were delighted to find a Jew among us."

Finally, my point is this: if one asks for clarity, one should keep both eyes and ears open.

whoever said what, I do not care. Strike first, ask questions.......no, do not bother asking...

Hmm, I had never looked at what the candidates actually said this close on this before.

Clinton, to paraphrase, If Iran launches a nuclear attack on Israel and I am president, we will attack Iran, and during the next ten years we would be able to totally obliterate them if they were to launch an attack. Then she adds that Iran needs to understand that because it might deter them from reckless, foolish, and tragic action.

Obama, to paraphrase, If Iran used nuclear weapons on Israel, we will respond forcefully and swiftly. We should not allow Iran to have nuclear weapons. I will do everything in my power to stop them from getting them, including military force. An attack on Israel or any of our allies in the region is unacceptable.

Ahmadinejad, to quote as translated, "This regime occupying Jerusalem must disappear from the page of time."

The two candidates say essentially the same thing, much the same as Bush, McCain etc., have said. The obvious thing I get from it is that Iran is something our candidates agree on.

Ahmadinejad's statement is, at least to me, more frightening interpreted this way. I understand, to a point, his animosity and frustration, however, the view that a nation should be disappear from the page of time is not going to lead us to a better world. Even in giving some credit to the argument that Israel is set up on Palestinian land, Israel has a right to exist as a nation now. Control of a region is not historically a static reality. Whether we look at race, religion, language, or other criteria, it changes.

Wizin, just a clarification... regime does not equal nation. For instance, a regime change in Iran would not wipe out the nation or its inhabitants (at least not in totality if done through violent means). It's the ruling body that he was referring to, not the citizens of Israel.