On the UN’s demands for an end to Iran’s nuclear programme: "It is not like we just follow whatever they issue"
On the outside world’s consideration of sanctions: "I think even the two or three countries who oppose us are wise enough not to resort to such a big mistake. Those who are speaking of sanctions would suffer more harm."
On Israel: "We say that this fake regime cannot logically continue to live … Let the Jews go back to their own countries"
Mr Ahmadinejad did however take a brief break from issuing naked threats to world peace to sign a decree allowing women to attend soccer games for the first time in 27 years. This resolves a long-standing anomaly whereby the authorities were technically breaking the law every time they dragged some luckless female into their local stadium for public execution.
I dare say we should take this small step in the direction of equality in the spirit with which it is offered…
Iran, yesterday – where women are always guaranteed a good view of the pitch…
15 comments:
I swear your humour is getting blacker.
I've been humped (critiqued) delightfully. OK so I know I am technically challenged. You may like to try it
www.desertodyssey.blogspot.com
"The presence of families and women will improve soccer-watching manners, and promote a healthy atmosphere," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said.
Savvy political commentators have been busy trying to figure out what this cunning trick may mean in terms of the power dynamics in Tehran these days (guessing what Ahmadinejad is up to next has becoem the new Kremlinology).
But here's my modest conjecture: with all the testosterone that accumulates on an all-male soccer stadium and no chick in sight, Iranian men must have started giving each other the eye--for an ayatollah, something scarier than your average un-Islamic good ol' fornication. So, between two evils, I guess they chose to go with the lesser one.
It's amazing that most people completely ignore this lunatic. I wonder what it's going to take to get the world to wake up.
Cheers
Wow, Pi - that certainly was a good humping! I just wish he'd called it something other than humping...
Interesting theory, Des, but I rather think he's as gay as old dad's hatband himself, given his bottomless hatred for all women-kind. That or he falls into the genitally-challenged fruitcake category, a la Hitler and Bin Laden.
And Randall, I think the USA is wide awake and on its second cup of coffee already. Unfortunately Europe has shown again and again that it's a very heavy sleeper, even when Germany was goosestepping through the Thirties right there in the bed.
My best guess is that they'll still be hitting the snooze button on their UN alarm clock right up to the moment Iran nukes Israel.
If pearls are the irritating inflammatory secretions of a bivalvic form of life, then truly Ahmadinejad's words are priceless jewels way in excess of their retail value. But he offers them up for free! (Startle).
The man beggars belief and pauperises plausibility but it's at that lack of plausibility where my view differs a wee bit from yours.
I can't see that he has anything to back up his wild words with. His main purpose at the moment seems to be rabble-rousing amongst people who are no friends of the West anyway. His domestic support is not as robust as he'd like and Iran's youth is becoming increasingly anti-clerical. True, they sponsor Hamas and all sorts of terrorist entities but they always have and his chief end at the moment seems to be rhetoric.
His rhetoric has upped the ante in the region, especially the anti-Semitic feeling, and, to me, that is his most dangerous effect. It is all too easy to put fire in the bellies of disaffected youths in other countries and egg on their own insurrections to do his dirty work for him. He is a rogue, no doubt, and clearly has ambitions to nuclear weapons but, from what I've read, he's a long way from being there yet and he still has to deal with dissent amongst his own ranks.
I think there is a more imminent disaster facing us with climactic change. Passing environmental tipping points seems to me to be our largest global and national security issue. That's what is keeping me awake at nights at the moment. Ahmadinejad - bad and scary, irreversable changes to the climate - badder and scarier.
Hey Pi, that's some high praise from the desert odyssey guy. Links and stuff can be learnt (although I've resisted) but your content rocks and I couldn't agree more with this bloke about it. It is unique in style and content amongst the blogs I read regularly, and I love the view on the past you have lived and convey so well. S'cool you were humped.
Ivan and Sam: thanks - your approval means a lot.
Sam, what exactly in your posts above are we supposed to admire? Your argumentative skills or your alliterative craft? Both, perhaps? I mean--"beggars belief and pauperises plausibility"? "...wild words with"? Well done, lass. But I challenge you to write your next post all in kenningar. :-)
I doubt Norse poetry will present Sam with any difficulties, Des - she is from the Hebrides, you know, and so roughly 90% Viking. But then again she might skip composing any Eddas and go straight to the bit where she turns up at your door with an axe and rips your lungs out... :)
Vanya, honestly! Lung-ripping is purely recreational for me. Indeed, in Lewis it is a sign of affection, that has fallen into disuse in recent years. Hysterical Recreation Societies have instituted something of a revival, but most only ripping out unneeded
unneeded organs like appendices and adenoids. Wusses.
For we serious recreators of the great Nordic traditions, to rip-wrench a mere tonsil out is a positive slight. Transplant doctors have taken to following us around with 6-pack sized ice-boxes in case we should attempt a fully authentic Island greeting. I myself am still fully functional on one kidney and a splinter-splash of spleen and, as a race, our livers are buggered by age two anyway, from suckling on mammy's 40-proof milk. Weekend organ-ripping is no more dangerous than boxing or being born a blueberry next to a nest of nightingales.
Des, you are supposed to agree, for my argument is alliteratively amenable to approbation. You are, with luck, meant to slip-slide into my ways of seeing and to
blind-blink at my blazing blogly bloviating. In short, you may well find yourself asking, who is this woman and how come she elbow-edged her island elfin-self* into a conversation about the Amadinejad's atomic arsenal aspirations?
Good question. The answere is, I like me a bit of Ivan in the evening and would like the chance to chime in on any site you might be persuaded to start, too. That old, "I have a thesis to write on a difficult topic and blogging would distract me from the business of my life" excuse won't work any more, my friend.
Great wiki-link on kenning, btw. Tonight I learnt that a kenning for "sword" is "onion of war" and that, beautifully, "brow-stars" are eyes. But any gentleman would never point out a lady's dangling prepositions ("wild words with"). If I had any shame, it would be complete.
* I'm not elfin really, more etiolated, which is like a taller kind of elfin.
All of a suddent, the Hebrides sound like a place I'll have to visit. As to my joining the choir of 90-million or so bloviators, I really cain't. You guys have jobs, families, children, things like that--you can afford to inflict nuggets of blogular wisdom upon an unsuspecting world. Me, I still have to get to the enviable position of getting some deluded university to hire me.
For the livresquely inclined among you, I can very warmly recommend a defunct Argentinian's musings on kenningar, Norse poetry, and Snorri Sturlusson--the ineffable Jorge Luis Borges.
Back to I'minadinnerjacket.
I think it is completely irrelevant what he does, or says. I have it on good authority from someone who consults in Washington that Iran will get bombed regardless towards the end of this year, as US Ordnance have spotted their use-by dates are coming up and they'd like to have a clear-out. I kid you not.
Apparently they're also planning another bomb run to whip up jingoism just before the next Presidentials à la Thatcher in the Falklands. Word is, it'll be Nigeria.
Sorry, Aunty - nice try, but no sale. Bombing Iran had a certain credibility (and in fact is fast becoming unavoidable), but no US President would dream of bombing Nigeria. Think of the endless Jesse Jackson speeches that would follow.
Anyway, there's no point bombing a place where no-one would be able to tell the difference afterwards.
The odds are stacked against Iran, that's for sure. It's just that no one has been able to tell me what's gonna happen after the bombing, when Iran decides to do some damage of their own.
As to Nigeria, its oil-fields have been declared a strategic national interest by the United States, which means they will step in to protect them, should they become endangered. Recently, Osama Bin Laden declared Nigeria "ripe for liberation".
Only time will tell, boys.
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