Broken Clock

As a member a relatively small group of despicable national leaders that include Hugo Chavez, Robert Mugabee, Hassan Nasrallah, and Hafez Assad, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stands alone. An anti-Western, anti-Semitic, Holocaust denier, this near-psychopath blithely and repeatedly threatens the annihilation of Israel, while many in the West, and most on the Left, argue that it's all rhetoric, that he doesn't really mean it.

Ahmadinejad is wrong almost all of the time. But even a broken clock is right twice a day, and with that in mind, it's worth considering a report of an interview he recently gave Iran's official news agency IRNA and reported by The Jerusalem Post:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad predicted the impending downfall of the "US empire," blaming the collapse on a combination of the country's massive debt and its loss of legitimacy within the international community, Iran's official news agency IRNA reported Thursday.

“How long can a government with a $16 trillion foreign debt remain a world power?” he asked at a press conference with Kuwaiti media personnel. "The Americans have injected their paper wealth into the world economy and today the aftermaths and negative effects of their pseudo-wealth have plagued them.”

He added: “An empire, or a government, remains in power so long as the people under its power support it, but today the Americans have acted in a way that the world nations do not like them at all, and therefore, their international legitimacy is annihilated.”

Ahmadinejad also predicted that the West would soon drop their alliance with the "Zionist regime," saying that Westerners and US politicians are increasingly "at a loss" as to why Israel exists.

Over the past four years under Barack Obama, the United States has suffered from dramatically accelerating debt. (“How long can a government with a $16 trillion foreign debt remain a world power?”) Worse, if Barack Obama is re-elected it is a virtual certainty that our current debt will increase to $20+ trillion or more by 2016. ("The Americans have injected their paper wealth into the world economy and today the aftermaths and negative effects of their pseudo-wealth have plagued them.”)

Obama's foreign policy in the middle east is imploding rapidly, providing an opening for Islamists like Ahmadinejad. Worse, Vice President Joe Biden, smiling maniacally during his debate, tried very hard to minimize the threat posed by Iran's nuclear ambitions. Showing a profound lack of understanding of nuclear issues, Mr.Biden suggested that building a weapon is the hard part. He's absolutely wrong. The hard part is what Iran is doing right now -- enriching Uranium to weapons grade. Despite sanctions and the President's rhetoric, they continue unimpeded on that path.

The Middle East is a b-a-d neighborhood, and Israel stands alone as a modern liberal democracy and ally of the United States. And yet, Barack Obama, despite the tenuous protestations of his rabid supporters, has repeatedly and consistently distanced his administration and his policy from Israel. ("...the West would soon drop their alliance with the 'Zionist regime' ...)" I wonder what has led Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to believe that?

Does he believe Obama will win a second term and that our "alliance" with Israel will be further weakened?

As I said, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is wrong about almost everything. I certainly hope he's wrong about his implied assumption that Obama will win a second term.