http://hardblogger.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/03/19/93853.aspxIranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be heading to New York to address the United Nations in hopes of convincing the world that his country’s nuclear research program is for energy and not weapons.  He has complemented that effort with rhetoricen-USCommunityServer 2.0 (Build: 60608.1)http://hardblogger.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/03/19/93853.aspx#93866Mon, 19 Mar 2007 14:34:35 GMT8a5d2dbc-a0e4-4c7a-979f-3188051f228e:93866Brett, NSW, AustraliaI was more worried about ties with Hezbollah. I'd hate to see the dreams of Nazi Fascists come true because the arabic world kept its old hatreds alive into a nuclear age. What if the US responds to nuclear attacks? What if they decide to target the US? I dont see the idea of a terror campaign by George Bush as being so overstated in this climate. I really hope Mahmoud goes to the UN with strong convictions and makes the speeches for everyones benefit (except fanatical organisations). I think the whole dumb moron president thing was wrong. I'm glad the coalition is on hand to work in the middle east!http://hardblogger.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/03/19/93853.aspx#93899Mon, 19 Mar 2007 15:22:17 GMT8a5d2dbc-a0e4-4c7a-979f-3188051f228e:93899C A Tuscaloosa, ALIts too bad the Arab countries lining up against Iran are not doing so out of a concern for the common good of their people, all people, and that Iran's attempts to gain nuclear capability are a threat to this common good rather than because they see Iran's actions as a threat to their capability of filling their pockets via their oil production. http://hardblogger.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/03/19/93853.aspx#93919Mon, 19 Mar 2007 15:51:54 GMT8a5d2dbc-a0e4-4c7a-979f-3188051f228e:93919Edmund Bennett, Oklahoma City, OklahomaColonel, after four years of failed ground war you have finally realized that the navy is the essential element for any effective military operation ..... just like Theodore Roosevelt said in his lectures at the Naval War College in the mid-1880s. Congratulations. You imply that the regional economic importance of oil is why the U.S. opposes Iran's acquisition of nuclear power. Then why did we acquiesce to Pakistan's recent acquisition of nuclear power? When Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was Prime Minister of Pakistan (1975-1978), and when his daughter Benazir Bhutto was Prime Minister later (1986-89, 1993-96), they tried to establish the right to vote for women and for men who did not own land, and they also to "federalize" the economy by returning funds to the provincial governments in proportion to how much raw material and production they supplied the nation. THESE ARE THE THINGS THE U.S. IS NOW PROMOTING IN IRAQ. But the Bhuttos also wanted nuclear power for Pakistan. Thus, the Carter administration, then the Reagan administration and the first Bush administration turned their backs on them. When Benazir came here in 1995 to demand that the U.S. deliver the jets she had paid for in 1989, Hillary Clinton treated her to tea and sympathy ..... and that was all. Zuliqar Ali Bhutto was executed in 1979, for being a democrat and a reformer, and Benazir has been in exile since 1996. Meanwhile, after a military coup in Pakistan, it acquired nuclear power -- which all of a sudden was perfectly fine with the U.S. Because, I believe, the U.S. State Department trusts military governments more than it does popular ones. During the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations there were some productive policies toward the Middle East. But the Johnson, Nixon and Ford people became obsessed with the Far East. Some of the same people are still making bad decisions about the Middle East. When are ya'll gonna retire? http://hardblogger.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/03/19/93853.aspx#93936Mon, 19 Mar 2007 16:07:38 GMT8a5d2dbc-a0e4-4c7a-979f-3188051f228e:93936Kevin Cisneros, Oklahoma City, OklahomaCA in Tuscaloosa is right, the Arab countries and the Persian sphere of influence are two sides of a counterfeit coin. They've been unfree places for over 1,500 years, and are still fighting each other. Now they are doing so by proxy, in Iraq, with the Sunni and Shi'a factions. So why has the U.S. sided with one over the other of these thugs? Our government acts like a prison punk, getting chummy with whoever's got the most cigarettes. It has nothing to do with freedom or democracy.http://hardblogger.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/03/19/93853.aspx#94186Mon, 19 Mar 2007 19:23:33 GMT8a5d2dbc-a0e4-4c7a-979f-3188051f228e:94186Peter MartinWhat puzzles me is why no one asks the Persians why they are willing to annhilate Isreal when it was their own King Cyrus whose edict rebuilt Jerusalem at one time ? Is this the same civilization of Persians or have they turned their backs on their own history ? As modern day Christians in the west we don't hate them as a people we believe they have been decieved by their own religious leaders beginning with Mohammed. They should only look at their own history of carnage on fellow Persions and Arabs to understand their misguided hatred .http://hardblogger.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/03/19/93853.aspx#94248Mon, 19 Mar 2007 20:19:52 GMT8a5d2dbc-a0e4-4c7a-979f-3188051f228e:94248James Buchanan, Laurel, MDFreedom isn't for everyone. If the people of the Persian gulf lack the will to rise up against their leaders, so be it. They can live in whatever kind of world they want. They want their lifestyle, they're welcome to it. The penultimate lesson of Iraq is that you cannot expect a logical response to freedom from a population unwilling to sacrifice on its own behalf. They don't value the freedoms the West enjoys, so they have neither meaning nor value. People tend to forget the most powerful democracies came about because of popular uprisings from within. Military in the case of the US, passive resistance and obstinance in the case of India (with a little violence here and there). No one came in riding on a white horse (well, except the French at Yorktown), the people themselves took action and resisted. Other nations supported the main effort, but the spark was lit from within. That said, if they're willing to live and let live, then they're doing us a favor and its in our enlightened self interest to support them. http://hardblogger.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/03/19/93853.aspx#94259Mon, 19 Mar 2007 20:30:24 GMT8a5d2dbc-a0e4-4c7a-979f-3188051f228e:94259Jan Flato Let's be honest. Wouldn't the world be better off if Ahmadinejad never made it out of the United States? He's the new Hitler and Hitler's don't deserve to live. What part of destroying both the United States and Israel does anyone not understand? 75% of the IRANIAN people want him gone! Why not get rid of one idiot and save the World a great deal of death and destruction. Think Hitler in 1933. Am I WRONG?http://hardblogger.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/03/19/93853.aspx#94261Mon, 19 Mar 2007 20:32:52 GMT8a5d2dbc-a0e4-4c7a-979f-3188051f228e:94261steve ny nyGULF ARABS are all dictatorships being protected and told what to do by the USA.If the USA left these dictators will be saddamised rope is cheaphttp://hardblogger.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/03/19/93853.aspx#94265Mon, 19 Mar 2007 20:37:14 GMT8a5d2dbc-a0e4-4c7a-979f-3188051f228e:94265Deez Nuts NY CITYKevin, HOW DARE YOU SPEAK OF US LIKE THAT!!! you have no idea what you are talking about. We have FREEDOM, just not your slut on EVERY corner freedom. You have no right to be in our area of the world. If you left with your JEWISH buddies you would never hear from us again. We are not thugs, we are "freedom fighters" is that not what the JEWS called themseleves when they were fighting for something that is not there's!!!!! So what is go for the goose is good for the gander. OH I forget we are not human and are thugs right!!!! JERK http://hardblogger.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/03/19/93853.aspx#94276Mon, 19 Mar 2007 20:48:41 GMT8a5d2dbc-a0e4-4c7a-979f-3188051f228e:94276rick rodriguez, corpus christi, TXIran never has, and cannot possibly be a military threat to our country, the U.S.A. .... The fact of the matter is that an armed Iran is mainly a threat to the Zionist occupiers in Falestinia (Palestine).... That's what this is all about. On this note, Israel is no different than all of these warring tribal factions in that region. Moreover, they are an illegitimate occupation. They won't mend their relations with their neighbors until the U.S. pulls the crutches. Our American government needs to do what is good for Americans....not waste our blood and treasure on foreigners and their designs. http://hardblogger.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/03/19/93853.aspx#94299Mon, 19 Mar 2007 21:06:21 GMT8a5d2dbc-a0e4-4c7a-979f-3188051f228e:94299Wayne Mattox, Woodbury, CT 06798George Bush went into Iraq with his good-guy white hat on, naively displaying all his cards so that allies and enemies alike understood that America had no personal ambitions in the area. Not for land, not for oil, not for anything except slowing down a snowballing escalation of Persian-based terrorism and propagated-hate against the West. While that snowball is still there, it doesn’t seem as menacing as it might have been. One thousand plus gave lives and limb to see that happen. Now, four years later, how do we get out? The situation seems hopeless. I suggest that the best “exit strategy” with some semblance of safety and human decency for those good Iraqi citizens left behind is to take off our white cowboy hat and put on a big wide black one. Give Iraq’s violence-expurgating neighbors six months to demonstrate that they have changed their ways or the United States will begin annexing quality land, possibly near the port of Umm Qasr, and begin building a prodigious and permanent military base paid for by and financed by oil extorted beneath Persian sand. My guess is that real fast, Iraq’s “good neighbors” will put down those explosives and 20mm guns they were loading into trucks and begin packing those same vehicles with food, water, shovels and brooms. “No need for you Americans to stay around here any longer,” they’ll tell us. “Go home now. We’ll help our brethren rebuild their country and live in peace!” Signed, Wayne Mattox http://hardblogger.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/03/19/93853.aspx#94303Mon, 19 Mar 2007 21:07:49 GMT8a5d2dbc-a0e4-4c7a-979f-3188051f228e:94303J A Keller Grove City, OhioCA in Tuscaloosa It's not just a matter of filling their pockets via their oil production, without the profits of the oil for these countries it would hurt the common good of all. Profit is not a dirty word, only if you do not understand it, it is.