he has danced into the danger zone, when a dancer becomes a dance

by mg at 08:28 AM on September 22, 2006

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been in the U.S. the past couple days speaking at the United Nations. For some reason Iran scares the living snot out of me, so I've taken every chance I've had to watch him speak. Faces you fears head on, I always say. That's the same reason I went to see Celine Dion when I was in Vegas.

Yesterday was Mahmoud's big speech in front of the UN General Assembly yesterday, and I got to watch all of it live on CSPAN. I also watched most of his press conference today at the U.N. where he answered questions from journalists from around the world. I only watch most of it because Dancing With the Stars was on.

From all the buzz on the guy, I was expecting a maniac. But he seemed well reasoned, well spoken, and charismatic. By the end of each of his two performances, I was starting to come around on this whole Iran thing. But then I turned off the TV, my brain started working again, and just how ridiculous everything he said was became obvious.

One of the frequent themes of his comments was that all people and nations should be subject to the same rules. This is an incredibly reasonable belief, and the basis of all free and peaceful nations, ours included (unless I got that part about how all men are created with certain unalienable rights wrong, like the guys who thought that slavery, and not letting women vote until only about 100 years ago were okay). Unfortunately, his question of why all nations aren't really being treated equally can should have been translated by the U.N. translator as "You guys have nukes, why can't we?" And really, the logic behind that is like when you get caught doing something bad as a little kid, and you rat our your little brother just because it isn't fair that you are the only one getting punished. Two wrongs don't make a right, even if it means you don't get a shiny nuclear bomb, or you have give up your X-Box for a week.

Another of his themes was justice. When one of the reporters asked him if he cared so much for justice, why was any citizen in Iran who criticized the government thrown in prison? His response was perfectly reasonable, that the laws of the land say you can't be openly critical of the government, and by not putting someone in jail for questioning his authority would be the real injustice. This translates to "I want justice in the world, but I should get to be judge, jury, and executioner." If he passed a law in that upon their 18th birthday every girl in Iran had to give him a blowjob, it'd be an "injustice" if they only offered a handy. Justice is simply enforcing the laws on the books, not making sure those laws themselves are in any way just.

Another reporter asked him if he was so much in favor of peace, how we should interpret his past comments about wiping Israel off the map. "Hey," he said, "I love all people, even the Jews." Well, except for the Zionists, who aren't really Jewish, and I guess aren't really people either. In his eyes Israel are occupiers of Palestine, and therefore terrorists.

To him, the equivalent would be if a bunch of Zoroastrians decided to take over the state of New Jersey and declare it their homeland. The people of New York would be totally in the right to send arms and aid to the militia in Jersey who were bombing buses in Newark and shooting rockets at hospitals in Trenton. They aren't helping murderers, rather supporting freedom fighters, and the people just going about their day by picking up some cheap furniture at the Ikea in Elizabeth while trying to avoid getting hit by missiles are the real terrorists.

The scary thing is that if you really believe that the government of Israel are the terrorists, then everything Hezbollah, the PLO, and all their supporters do can be justified as perfectly acceptable behaviors. For example, to catch some terrorists who were hiding in and supported by the government of Afghanistan, we bombed and invaded the country, and toppled that regime. It all is legitimate if Afghanistan had something to do with 9/11 and was a future threat to our country.

But, if we were wrong about the threat of Afghanistan, or say Iraq, then we'd be the terrorists.

Oops.

Anyway, the strange part of this all is that I found myself totally understanding where the guy was coming from. I completely disagree with his basic premise about Israel, and wish he'd eaten a couple of spinach salads while he was Stateside, but I could see where people might think he could be speaking the true word. In fact, please keep an eye out and if I start to grow a beard, get very secretive about my life and activities, and become insensitive towards women, maybe you should contact Homeland Security on me.