James is a five-letter word.

Adolf is a five-letter word..

Coincidence?

Can Ahmadinejad be called a dictator when he doesn't, technically speaking, actually run his country?

When did magazines start employing full-time trolls?

You know, I'm not sure Jamie's "evidence" goes here he thinks it does....it's striking to me that on Goldberg's site the phrase "Zionist Regime/Entity" greatly outnumbers "Israel"...what are we to make of this distinction?  

Obsession is unbecoming in a man and downright stupid in a journalist.

For the 1,026,890,775th time: Ahmadinejad, a certifiable lunatic of the first rank, does NOT run Iran's foreign policy, has never run Iran's foreign policy, will not run Iran's foreign policy, and would not know where to find Iran's foreign policy if it were rammed up his arse by the homosexuals who do not exist in Iran.

Iran's official policy towards Israel was formulated many years ago and expressed in official statement after official statement by the Leader, who IS in charge of Iran's foreign policy.  It is that there ought to be a referendum that includes both Palestinians and Israelis to determine the fate of the two states.  It is a daft idea, will never fly, and will result in an overwhelmingly Arab vote for a single non-Jewish entity.  BUT, the official policy of the Government of Iran is not the mass murder of Jews or Israelis of any kind.  And, in fact, in the last three years, not one Iranian Jew has been arrested for being Jewish, and at least for the last twenty years, not one - that is, exactly zero - Jewish Iranian has been executed for being a spy for Israel.  Meanwhile, thousands of Muslim and Shiite Iranian languish in Iranian jails.

As for whether Hamas will engage in mass murder in Tel Aviv - yes, yes, aha, aha, because of course the IDF is going to disarm tomorrow, the US will suddenly forget about Israel, and the Europeans will finally rejoice in Hitler's grand design coming to fruition.  WHATEVER one might think of one or two states (or three, one for Hamas the other for Fatah), it is certain that disarming, oblivion and mass murder are NOT on  the agenda for Israel at any rate.  So instead of these alarmist posts, could we PLEASE have some real reporting?

With all due respect, icarus, what's to report? Guys like Yglesius and Kirchick have to write about something, and it's sure not going to be any particular progress towards a solution which doesn't exist.

I was interested in Yglesius' original post because he used the partitions of Poland at the end of the 18th Century as an example of how a state could be wiped off the map without destroying its population. Bad example, because in the first place the partitions actually were a disaster for the Polish population; and they set the precedent and example for the 1939 partition that resulted in the Holocaust.

I think it's clear to objective observers that Iran has and will prefer that Israel as a Jewish state be superceded by a Muslim-majority one. They have a number of tactical measures in play to encourage that result, including the pursuit of nuclear capacity, but I've seen no evidence of any plan for military conquest per se, much less genocide. On the other hand, it seems that the big majority of Iran's population doesn't give a rat's ass about "the Palestinians" or Israel, and would probably act over time to modify the fascist nature of the regime given more meaningful contacts with the West.

Buchanan's comment isn't too far off imo. The Holocaust reached its full-swing in the later stages of the war when it was finally lost. Also, there was debate among the German ranks over whether extermination was "un-German." Anyone remember the Madagascar solution?

Ahmadejan is an idiot, but he's not the only power in Iran. The Bush administration would be wise to ignore him and to speak with other pillars of power in Iran, which does have a middle-class and a population which is receptive to the West, one aspect in a diverse society.

Also, Ahmadinejad will not be president of Iran by about this time next year. The Dinner Jacket has little authority over foreign policy, no authority over most of Iran's military establishment, and almost certainly will not be reelected next year.

So why all the aggro over parsing the guy's intentions toward Israel when he has no power to carry out his intentions and will be gone in a few months anyway? Caring what the Dinner Jacket really thinks about Israel is as useful as worrying about whether Harry Reid wants to annex Saskatchewan.

But Kirchick does hit on an important issue: The election of Hamas to a governing majority in the Palestinian Authority. That was the single greatest disaster for the Israeli-Palestinian relationship -- and for the Palestinian people -- in two decades. And it didn't happen because of Iranian perfidy. It happened because George W. Bush and his coterie of Kirchickian hacks insisted, against Israel's wishes and Fatah's warnings, that Hamas terrorists be allowed to stand for election without laying down their arms. It was the biggest surrender to terrorism -- the worst act of appeasement -- since Ronald Reagan baked a cake for Tehran.

So if we want to complain about Americans who are doing the enemy's bidding as active dupes of anti-Semites, we shouldn't complain about those who worry insufficiently about Ahmadinejad. We should complain about the conservatives in our own government -- including the president and secretary of state -- who actively aided and abetted Hamas's rise to power.

Robert Powell- Hitler and Stalin did not split up Poland because of an earlier partition of the country. The Allies didn't allow it to happen (there was that whole war thing) because of an earlier partition. There was no relation between the partitions. You and Kirchick should drop the idea unless you're both suggesting if Israel was partitioned in 200 years something awful will a newly reformed Israel.

Rhubs: As a Canadian, I care a great deal about whether Harry Reid wants to invade Saskatchewan.  Have you heard anything?  Is a whole new "50 state strategy" - adding 50 new impeccably social democratic states to the Union? (Sask. was the home of universial medical insurance in Canada.)

RP: I couldn't agree with you more.  My beef with Yglesias is that no one has any clue what the frack Ahmadinejad means when he opens his mouth, least of all anyone who does not speak Persian or who is aware of what is going on domestically in Iran.  Right now, the entire Iranian establishment - including the ultra rightwingers who installed him in the Presidency - are aghast at his latest pronouncements about American and "Zionist" plots to kidnap him in Iraq or assassinate him in Rome.  As the ultra conservative Keyhan (the mouthpiece of the Leader) wrote something along the lines of "Sometimes, it would help the President not to rush into judgement; sometimes, choosing words carefully is better than telling the whole truth in an unguarded moment."  This is a mighty rebuke, for those who understand what is going on.

"it seems that the big majority of Iran's population doesn't give a rat's ass about "the Palestinians" or Israel."  You're dead on about this.  Iran has the most pro-Western population in any Muslim country; bear in mind that most Iranians - a vast, vast majority - are not willing to risk their lives for THEIR OWN freedom in rising up against the regime; they certainly are not willing to do so for Palestinians. (And Fatah is responsible for training and arming the MKO, the most reviled "opposition group" in Iran.  Trust me, there is no love lost between Iranians and Fatah or Hamas.)

None of the crap these guys write is either news or even analysis.

icarusr, my point is simply that Reid is not in a position to do anything about annexing Saskatchewan even if he wanted to. Which has not actually come up in American politics -- and that's kind of surprising, since they just started showing "Corner Gas" on American TV. First presidential candidate to propose annexing Dog River gets my vote.

The mullahs have been running the country for nearly 30 years; if they wanted a fight with Israel and the United States, they could have it today. Ahmadinejad is a clown pandering to the base, nothing more.

In any event, evertime I read a post by JK advocating some sort of military adventure, I always wonder why he doesn't go down to his local recruiter and get sum. I guess matching that formidable mouth should be matched by a willingness to fight for those ideals.

Icarus--it's my hope that sense will prevail in our relationship with Iran. They aren't going away, and neither are we. We'll probably have an easier time of it if we use our mutual friends in Iraq as a go-between.

kbecker--it seems pretty clear to me that Hitler and Stalin partitioned Poland for about the same reasons it was partitioned in the 1790's--it represented a disturbing example of independence and individual freedom when the neighbors were trying to consolidate authoritarian empires. These partitions set a precedent which made Hitler and Stalin's "solution" thinkable, plannable, and ultimately and doable.

The idea that "the Allies didn't allow it to happen" would be hilarious if the subject wasn't so grave. Between the two of them Hitler and Stalin killed over 20% of Poland's pre-war population with little or no effective interference from "the Allies", and when it was all over the pretense of a re-instated Poland was enslaved by the USSR, initially with epic ethnic cleansing accompanied by rape and massacre.

If the concept of national legitimacy determined by opinion poll of the neighbors holds, as many Muslims contend it should in "Palestine", I expect that given the accelerating rate of such things over the last couple of centuries we wouldn't have to wait 200 years for something really awful to happen.

Robert Powell- While it might be very clear to you, I don't think it's very clear to anyone else besides Kirchick.  Are you seriously suggesting Hitler and Stalin couldn't split up Poland unless it happened before?

True enough, but that's not I said. (It is funny that you would quote something and stop in mid-sentence.) "The Allies didn't allow it to happen because of an earlier partition." They let it happen because they were scared of a repeat of World War I.

FWright and icarusr are correct.  Who gives a crap what Ahmadinejad says?  He's his country's foremost civil servant.  Let's assume that Jamie's correct and dear old Pres. Ahamadinejad is utterly sincere and that Jamie's spot-on about everything he says.  He can't do squat with it.

The consanguinity of the parents of some people on the Left, whose ruddy complexion and/or good humor would seem to evince mere credulity, but in reality somehow evince both sanguinity and the baleful motives of all freaks -- in the sense that we simply cannot say whether the products of incest (most of whom are on the Left and support Barack Obama) are merely agnostic regarding the baneful effects of Jew-murdering, or are, in their cheerful way, more personally invested in the spirit of the thing -- confirms that these people -- and I call them that reluctantly, aware of the potentially baneful effect on the English language that ascribing personhood to such malformed defamers of actual Americans entails -- collectively comprise an insidious and antisemitic brotherhood bound by their sinister lack of warmongering, Jew-nonchalance, and  transparent resentment of actual Americans, who, of course, do not have birth defects, nor do they secretly condone sleeping with one's sister (as some on the Left do).  After all, Hitler was a hunchback.  Or maybe I'm thinking of Richard III.  In any event, the similarities between Hitler, or Richard III for that matter, and Matthew Yglesias, while not apparent, are nonetheless baleful.