Eamonn Fitzgerald's Rainy Day

One could have written this news story intro a year ago, a month ago, a week ago, but it's from yesterday: "European Union foreign ministers agreed on Saturday to give diplomacy two more weeks to clarify Iran's stance on halting sensitive nuclear work after Tehran ignored a U.N. deadline to stop uranium enrichment." Love the "clarify" bit, there. Because Iran's stance is as clear as the Finlandia vodka that the European Union foreign ministers were throwing back while drafting their statement up in Lappeenranta, the wretched thing reeks of booze — no sober person could have composed such balderdash. Worse, actually, it reeks of appeasement.

Speaking of which, it is a pity that the European Union foreign ministers did not spend time reading the 18-page letter Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wrote to US President George W. Bush on 9 May. The author is clearly a crackpot as is illustrated by the faux-naïve rhetorical questions he asks:

After the war they claimed that six million Jews had been killed. Six million people that were surely related to at least two million families. Again let us assume that these events are true. Does that logically translate into the establishment of the state of Israel in the Middle East or support for such a state? How can this phenomenon be rationalized or explained?

Like the most deranged of conspiracy theorists, the questions Ahmadinejad asks sound superficially reasonable: "September eleven was not a simple operation. Could it be planned and executed without coordination with intelligence and security services — or their extensive infiltration? Of course this is just an educated guess. Why have the various aspects of the attacks been kept secret?"

One can imagine the Iranian president smiling, lunatic-like, as he typed "Of course this is just an educated guess." Weird. Scary.Ugly.

Before European Union foreign ministers issue anymore ludicrous statements, they should end their transparent and increasingly embarrassing fantasy about Iran. The mullahs will not give up their dream of dominating the Middle East and allowing them two weeks or two years to "clarify" their intentions will do nothing to change this. Ahmadinejad wants a weapon of genocide. It's as simple as that. We should empty those vodka bottles and shatter those glasses quickly because he warns us that: "Liberalism and Western-style democracy have not been able to help realize the ideals of humanity. Today these two concepts have failed. Those with insight can already hear the sounds of the shattering and fall of the ideology and thoughts of the Liberal democratic systems." Clear? Clarified?