If you haven’t yet read the German Der Spiegel interview with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, go read it now. If it’s not enough to make you reconsider your summer vacation to Tehran this year, I don’t know what is. After speculating on whether or not he’ll attend the World Cup or watch it on TV at home, Ahmadinejad then proceeds to all but ardently deny the Holocaust, and suggests that the Germans are being undermined by the Jews:
Ahmadinejad: Let me ask you one thing: How much longer can this go on? How much longer do you think the German people have to accept being taken hostage by the Zionists? When will that end – in 20, 50, 1,000 years?
Sound familiar? Der Führer would certainly be proud. Remember, Ahmadinejad is the president of the 18th largest country in the world — the same Ahmadinejad who helped take American embassy personnel hostage in 1979. He is also the same Ahmadinejad who claims that he will not, if given the opportunity, make nuclear weapons.
I’m not sure what to do about Iran right now — it is indeed a difficult issue. I do, however, hope that world leaders remember the folly of Neville Chamberlain. The shadow of a certain failed Austrian painter looms large with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and it would be dangerous to underestimate him.