[JAGA-JAGA]

Paul,
Before we digress on this topical issue, just to let you know that Francois Mitterand was not the immediate past president of France who opposed the US/British and so called 'coalision of the willing' invasion of Iraq. The president of France then was Jacques René Chirac. This information is alluded in paragraphs 7 and 8 of your message.

On the issue at stake, much as I won't hold brief for both US and the state of Israel on the way they execute their foreign policies but I need to make it clear that Ahmadinejad is the root cause of his own problems. Here is a president who abandoned his campaign promises to the electorate but is obsessed with power just for the sake of it. He keeps on boasting to the whole world whoever cares to listen that he is going to crush all enemies of the Islamic republic of Iran. Not done with he also denies the existence of the holocust of which living witneses abound. Indeed the Germans the perpetrators of this atrocities had made restitution and continue to pay other necessary compensations as they arise so as to address this evil. Yet Ahmadinejad says he is going to wipe out the state of Israel from the earth and went as far as hosting a conference in Teheran on holocust denial. This is outrageous and only a tree would remain in same state after being fore warned of its demise!

Ahmadinejad has started on the same path of futility by luring his country into a friutless confrontation with the west. He boasts about his nuclear plant program just the same mistake that Saddam did with WMD which never existed but he displayed attittude that was suspect.

Coming to the issue of developing nuclear bomb, is that a priority for Iran now? The basic developemental institutions are still underdevolped, yet he wants to make the world believe in this bogus programe. Does he want to be like Pakistan who is following the footsteps of India. However, India is far ahead in developmental instutional establishments than Pakistan. At least India has a functional democracy and a robust economy independent of oil/gas. I think Ahmadinejad has nothing to offer the Iranians and should just vacate his office after what he promised to deliver and could no longer accomplish it. With defeat staring him on the face he now looks outside to generate attention that would give him local/international support in order to hide his incompetence.

For the attainment of the so called MAD(Mutaul assured destruction) status in armament, this is a ruse and will never work!. Both NATO and the WARSAW PACT countries then, knew that this was not attainable and was one of the basic reasons that led Gorbachev to dismantle the former USSR. To date, no country has that advantage because the submarine based nuclear missiles could provide up to 3rd strike capabilities not to mention the recent race into space with lots of unknown in place.

Finally, let Iran be assured that the US does not have the courage/capacity to go into another full scale protracted war as 'their nose is already bloodied' in Iraq to borrow the language of Robert Mugabe on his recent UN general Assembly address. Talking of invasion of Iran by the US now is not feasible. The worst case is that they the US may hit some opportunity targets in order to dismantle whatever progress Iran has made on it's nuclear facilities. Israel did exactly that to Iraq under Saddam's regime and I believe this is avoidable if Iranian government would negotiate it's way out of the deadlock or face the actions of the UN nuclear watch agency.