Reply #6: It's absolutely because of the chimp Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected.

[tjwash]

Mohammad Khatami, was by ME standards, a radical and a liberal. He tried to improve the status of women, and of young people, and tried to get around the "good-old-boy" style theocracy that ran everything. He also worked very hard with the U.S. (at least when Bill Clinton was in office).

Then came Bush, 9-11, "your either with us or against us", and the lumping in of everyone who wasn't Saudi Arabia or Israel in with the "Axis of Evil" (god, I hate that fucking term). Then the move of U.S. forces slowly across the desert, to now being right next door to them in striking distance.

Hell yeah, what do you think WE would do as a people in that kind of a circumstance?