A Stopped Clock, Etc

Reuters:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Tuesday told delegates at an international conference questioning the Holocaust that Israel's days were numbered.
...
"Thanks to people's wishes and God's will, the trend for the existence of the Zionist regime is downwards, and this is what God has promised and what all nations want," he said.

"Just as the Soviet Union was wiped out and today does not exist, so will the Zionist regime soon be wiped out," he added.

Faithful readers know that one of my majors was Russian and Soviet Studies.  Half of that is kinda worthless--my deteriorating Russian notwithstanding--as the Soviet Union dissolved just after I graduated.

So Ahmadinejad (yes, I copy and pasted that because hell if I can spell the fucker's name, let alone pronounce it) is correct in that the USSR exists no more.  And quite frankly, I don't think Israel can survive in its current form: that of a teeny, embattled, US-supported nation that oppresses a significant portion of its population and that of a fledgling, neighboring state.  I'll note that the Soviet Union is indeed gone, but her people live on in relative freedom and if Israel is similarly "wiped out" it wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.

The Holocaust denial stuff is, of course, complete psycho bullshit.  That said, Israel does not own Brand Shoah™ and whatever whacko stuff some people believe about the atrocities of WWII doesn't justify the wholesale brutality and degradation that the Palestinians endure today.

ntodd