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Iran: Inflating the importance of a paper tiger

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and his country Iran, are the bad boys on the block. The Iranian president has, most certainly, made outrageous statements and one has to wonder at times whether the man is unhinged. Then again, Ahmadinejad has called on the West to be even-handed in its position of nuclear weaponry in the Middle East. What about Israel? he rightly asks.

Roger Cohen, writing his latest op-ed piece in the IHT [also published in The New York Times] suggests that the president and his country are, in reality, paper tigers and quite stupidly demonised and targeted for criticism - and even possibly attack - without reason for doing so.

"Ahmadinejad is a one-trick pony. His thing is double standards. Ask about the Iranian nuclear program, he’ll retort with Israel’s undeclared nuclear arsenal. Ask about Iran’s economic difficulties, he’ll see you with September 2008. Ask about rampant capital punishment, he’ll raise you a Texas. Ask about Iranian lying, he’ll counter with human rights and Abu Ghraib."

.....

"I read with interest in a recent piece by my colleagues John Markoff and David Sanger that “in the past year Israeli estimates of when Iran will have a nuclear weapon had been extended to 2014.” Given that various Israeli leaders have predicted that Iran would have a bomb in 1999 or 2004 or just about every year since 2005, that’s a decade and a half of the non-appearing wolf at the door."

.....

"Yes, Ahmadinejad is the bogeyman from Central Casting. One of the things there’s time for, if you’re not playing games with the Iran specter, is a serious push for an Israeli-Palestinian breakthrough that would further undermine the Iranian president.

I don’t expect that, however. And here are two more predictions: Obama won’t attack Iran and nor will Israel, not by next July or ever. Iran is a paper tiger, a postmodern threat: It has many uses but a third Western war against a Muslim country is a bridge too far."

Over at The Independent Robert Fisk in "Lebanon and Hizbollah ready to welcome Ahmadinejad" reports and reflects on the Iranian president's current visit to Lebanon.

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