Interesting editorial from Le Monde in France:
French Editorial: World Should Be Very Worried About Iran's Nuclear Intentions Editorial: "Hatred"
The mask has fallen, if there was any such need. By calling on the Muslim world to ensure that Israel disappears from the map, Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad completed, in a few words, Wednesday 26 October, the disturbing portrait of an all-powerful and extremist head of state. With each of his statements, the Iranian ambition, now represented by this former revolutionary guard, is emerging increasingly openly and aggressively.
To all those who believed, or wanted to believe, that the Islamic Republic had at last calmed down, in particular by ceasing to nurture its "anti-Zionist" obsession, actual events have demonstrated that this is not at all the case. Mahmud Ahmadinejad's Iran is sticking to its guns. The new Iranian president is indeed resolved to revive the official doctrine of the young Republic since its creation in 1979: "As imam Khomeyni said, Israel must be removed from the map," he told several thousand inflamed students, at a conference on the unequivocal theme of "The World Without Zionism."
Suddenly the reformist period of Mohammed Khatami's presidency (1997-2005) has come to an end. Now Iran is again more radical than the Palestinians, resolved to do become spokesman of the Muslim world, to claim the leadership of the disinherited, humiliated, and angry masses. In this coveted role, the Iranian president chooses to speak like the most extremist preachers, encouraging the crowd to pillory Israel and the United States and, for good measure, promising Arab leaders tempted to recognize the Jewish state that they will burn "in the fire and fury of the community of believers."
This rationale of hatred used by the Iranian president occurs against the backdrop of a political stiffening. Having failed to revive his people's hopes within a few months (15 percent of the population o working age are unemployed,) and having failed to show that oil revenue can be better shared, the regime is striving to flatter the most conservative and dogmatic reflex responses. Women, in particularly, who had in recent years enjoyed very hesitant progress, are again subject to permanent control of their attire. The world of culture is under close surveillance: the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution has just banned the distribution and projection "of foreign movies spreading secular, feminist, and liberal ideas..." Websites are being monitored, censored, or banned.
The brutal nature of this regression is more than a bad sign. It is a cause for serious alarm, at a time when Iran's nuclear ambitions are being persistently displayed. At the end of the negotiations between Teheran and the EU, nobody believes any longer in the fairy story of an oil power seeking to acquire a civilian nuclear resource. The international community is now justified in feeling very seriously worried about what use Iran would make of the bomb.
(Description of Source: Paris Le Monde (Internet Version-WWW) in French -- leading left-of-center daily)
Laura, your posts #4406 and 4408, they seem to point to a war at any minute.
What comes next, is not going to be nice.
With Iran, comes Cuba, Russia and maybe North Korea, plus all the other communist countries attempting to get a lick in at us.
Thank you for letting us know that you are also working on the Iran thought.
Thanks stillproud2befree.
Iran is a concern.
France is a little late in recognizing this, in my opinion.
I work with a Nigerian RX who immigrated here about 6 yrs ago...she is irate over why people do not get it is religious persecution (terrorists) She is so grateful we do