Iran's Wild President Cruisin' For A Bruisin'

By:  Rachel Marsden

NEW YORK — Now that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has released 15 British hostages, it’s time to take stock of what it all really means.

Is this Mahmoud guy auditioning for Rosie O’Donnell’s spot on The View? He has the Bush-bashing down, and is obviously good for TV ratings. As an added bonus, he could hang with Barbara Walters, like fellow world class nutcases, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Cuban leader Fidel Castro, have been fond of doing.

Like Rosie, Mahmoud seems to have contempt for facts. According to the BBC, Iran said the hostages were found in Iranian waters, but when the UK pointed out that Iran’s coordinates represent a location in Iraqi territory, Iran “corrected” the location to a place on Iranian turf. Mahmoud obviously has the same loose screw as people who still think Al Gore won the presidential election in 2000.

Mahmoud says that releasing the hostages was a “gift to Britain.” Sort of like if someone steals my car, then returns it a couple of weeks later, along with a Hallmark card.

My colleagues who cover the Mideast say Mahmoud is wildly unpopular in his country. So who’s going to do something about it? Apparently, no one over there. Ronald Reagan already tried helping Iranian moderates after another set of hostage crises 30 years ago.

I understand Mahmoud really wants to get into a punch-up with the West. I’m all for giving him what he wants. Just a few bombs every day, until he realizes that if he doesn’t smarten up, he’ll end up as “president” of a NATO parking lot, just east of Iraq.

Knocking out a few Iranian military installations every day would have proven that the West doesn’t go to war in the Mideast to get cheap oil. Prices at the pump would have gone up, proving that sometimes war really is just about dealing with a jerk like Mahmoud who’s cruisin’ for a bruisin’.

If there’s any war the left should have been able to get behind, it would have been this one. The jacked up oil prices would have forced people to consider alternative transportation — a leftist’s wet dream.

And they would have been able to root for the “little guy” and be on the right side for once, since Iran is larger than the UK both in terms of population and geography.

The one thing on which both the U.S. and Iran can agree is the uselessness of the United Nations.

Even as the most recent UN member to be stiffed by Mahmoud (on the bill for Russia’s work on his nuclear reactor), Russia wouldn’t allow the UN to use any strongly-worded language against Iran.

Apparently, to demand the “immediate” release of hostages would have been too inflammatory. As usual, UN strategy can be summed up as sitting around waiting for Mahmoud to take his meds.

As for British Prime Minister Tony Blair, it’s time for Margaret Thatcher to take him on a shopping trip to Gonads R Us. When a dictator seizes members of your military and parades them around in track suits (which, judging by the latest Fidel Castro video, is the new anti-American uniform of choice), giving them various tasks to do on camera, as if he’s directing them in a new reality series, here’s what you don’t do.

You don’t wait for George W. Bush to ride shotgun before you do something.

If you do nothing, you’re only encouraging Mahmoud and his Iranian friends to make a sequel.

 

PUBLISHED:  TORONTO SUN (April 8/07)

COPYRIGHT 2007 RACHEL MARSDEN