"Come on Ed, there is nothing nuanced about ahamadijad. What he said was very clear."
He's said a lot of things. Taking the most radical of them, taking them out of context and sometimes exaggerating them to create frightful straw men is not the way to analyze what someone might, or might not, do.
A reasoned analysis wouldn't be simply based on one liners that are then stretched to mean more than they literally said. A reasoned analysis would fairly contrast the possible meanings of those statements with the many other statements made so that the fabric could be seen, not just the thread.
When we see what's being done in "analyzing" his words it's very reminiscent of what we saw with respect to Saddam Hussein in the buildup to the invasion of Iraq. Then, as here, the full context of his speeches were not taken into account, his words were misinterpreted and any statements that didn't fit the spin were not reported or dismissed as self serving lies.
As I said before, if he's as dangerous and as out of control as some would like us to believe, then I'd expect to see a lot more than I'm seeing.
And, as you say, even if you get past the "he's a threat to us" test, the question becomes whether he could, or would, act on it. Ed |
