If you listened to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as he periodically
declares that the state of Israel will soon disappear, you’d think he’s either forgotten to take his allotted dosage of lithium for that day, or that he is about to perform some sort of David Copperfield magic trick.
Suffice it to say that the mental stability that precludes making such audaciously naïve proclamations should be a grave concern to any country within a fifty mile radius of his vicinity. The question is, how many times does he have to issue such virulent threats before he can be both taken seriously and responded to accordingly, or at least be officially declared a mentally unstable individual and properly committed to an institution?
It’s one thing if you are a foreign dictator constantly issuing empty threats against this country. Virtually every despot in the world has cut his teeth by spouting off such condemnations against the imperialist United States. But it’s a different thing if you are doing so against your next door neighbor.
If the governor of Texas suddenly started making veiled threats against the state of Massachusetts, and openly declaring that the latter will soon disappear from the map, someone would see to it that either a S.W.A.T. squadron or a team of highly skilled psychiatrists is immediately dispatched to remove the governor and start some testing. How anyone still tolerates Ahmadinejad’s delirious rantings is somewhat of an enigma.
There is a name for people that habitually engage in this type of harangue, and there are also a number of prescription drugs available to them to help them collect themselves so that they can at the very least function somewhat properly in society.
Universal common sense tends to dictate that people who engage in such tirades in public are typically admitted for careful observation and duly tested before they are considered stable enough to be released back into mainstream society, mainly for fear that they may cause harm to themselves or others. Evidently, in places like Iran they are elected to be president.
One technicality worthy of consideration for the global community is that most lunatics are extremely unlikely to have at their disposal the kind of military arsenal that president Ahmadinejad does. This presents a uniquely dangerous situation, which puts many world leaders in a thorny predicament: do they take this highly unpredictable tyrant seriously enough to stop him a la Saddam Hussein before he makes good on his promise, or do they make a calculated risk to ignore him and potentially suffer the consequences of his eerie determination to fulfill repeated doomsday predictions against the Zionist state.
The problem is not that Ahmadinejad is merely pandering to the majority of Bush hating liberals residing in this country – although there is a distinct possibility he has them in mind when he gives his by-monthly anti-American address - but that what he says must enjoy the fervent support of a sizable number of the population in the country that he governs; otherwise, one would have to question how he ever became their leader.
This means that a good portion of Iranians are possibly somewhat disordered in their thinking as to how the world operates, to put it mildly. It also means that those who wish to oppose Ahmadinejad’s declarations do not consist of a big enough majority to stop him from continuing to damage the already wanting global image of their country, which is sorely in need of an extreme makeover. For the latter, they are constantly faced with a similar disheartening prospect of a child who has to admit to his peers that, indeed, his father is the guy with Tourettes’ syndrome standing in the corner and screaming obscenities. Being a native of Venezuela I feel their pain.
For one, a leader like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad doesn’t help improve Iran’s image which is already perceived in the minds of many as that of a country teeming with volatile religious zealots who will pick up a sword and slit the throats of their rhetorical opponents at the drop of a turban. His approach is also far from inviting to the few foolish individuals who are interested in engaging him in meaningful dialogue.
Which brings me to a very important question: how could anyone – namely Barack Obama, who just recently clinched the Democratic presidential nomination - be though of as having a sufficiently sound mind to take on the job of leader of the most powerful county in the world, and think that he can eventually engage Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in rational dialogue?
I guess only time will tell. And when election time comes around, perhaps we may find out if the majority of voters in this country suffer from a similar disorder that seems to have already stricken a good portion of the Iranian population.
