The Iranians can’t understand why everyone is getting bent out of shape about their threats to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. After all, it’s nothing new:

“Our respected president has not said anything new or unprecedented about Israel to justify such a huge political tumult,” wrote Hossein Shariatmadari, who was appointed to his post as editor of the Kayhan daily by Iran’s Supreme Leader.

“Iran’s nuclear case … could be a reason for the recent clamour,” he said.

Gee, ya think?

Actually, they’re right. For years, it’s been just fine with many in the west for Iran roust people out in the streets to chant “Death to America, Death to the Zionists, Death to the Great Satans,” as long as they couldn’t actually do anything about it.

[Update at 9 AM PDT]

The Iranian president has an innovative solution to stock market woes, too:

Iran

The Iranians can’t understand why everyone is getting bent out of shape about their threats to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. After all, it’s nothing new:

“Our respected president has not said anything new or unprecedented about Israel to justify such a huge political tumult,” wrote Hossein Shariatmadari, who was appointed to his post as editor of the Kayhan daily by Iran’s Supreme Leader.

“Iran’s nuclear case … could be a reason for the recent clamour,” he said.

Gee, ya think?

Actually, they’re right. For years, it’s been just fine with many in the west for Iran roust people out in the streets to chant “Death to America, Death to the Zionists, Death to the Great Satans,” as long as they couldn’t actually do anything about it.

[Update at 9 AM PDT]

The Iranian president has an innovative solution to stock market woes, too:

Iran

That’s what this looks like to me:

Iran has promised a reward of $10,000 (5600 pounds) to Islamic Jihad if the militant group launches rockets from the West Bank towards Tel Aviv, a senior Palestinian intelligence official said last week.

After the threats to destroy them recently, how much more of this is Israel supposed to take? This is literally state-sponsored terrorism. If the rockets are launched, there’s a clear address at which Israel can respond.

And one that the mainstream press won’t even bother to mention, let alone celebrate, because he’d know that most people would cheer the event (to their dismay). Ten years ago, Rudy Giuliani tossed Yasser Arafat out of a concert at the Lincoln Center. For that alone, he’d get my vote if he runs for president.

From today’s WSJ:

When people fear for their future, they invest in gold; jewelry and coins can be sewn into clothes and smuggled out of the country. When people feel confident about the future, they buy real estate.

Guess which is happening in Iraq?

Read about this letter from Al Zawahiri to Al Zarqawi:

Zawahiri also complains about Zarqawi’s all-out war against the Shiites of Iraq, saying the Arab man in the street doesn’t understand why suicide bombings are killing so many fellow Muslims.

The letter also indicates Zawahiri’s life in hiding has left him cut off from news and financial support. He asks Zarqawi to provide him more information about operations in Iraq, saying he should know at least as much as the enemy knows, and he even asks Zarqawi to send money.

Well, maybe Zarqawi is losing Zawahiri’s support, but he’s still got Michael Moore and Ted Kennedy in his camp…

I have to say, though, I don’t know what it is that CBS finds “chilling” about the letter.

Then read this (long but worthwhile) report from Mosul by Michael Yon, if you want to know who’s winning, and who’s losing, this war.

[Update on Friday morning]

Dan Darling has further thoughts.

Read about this letter from Al Zawahiri to Al Zarqawi:

Zawahiri also complains about Zarqawi’s all-out war against the Shiites of Iraq, saying the Arab man in the street doesn’t understand why suicide bombings are killing so many fellow Muslims.

The letter also indicates Zawahiri’s life in hiding has left him cut off from news and financial support. He asks Zarqawi to provide him more information about operations in Iraq, saying he should know at least as much as the enemy knows, and he even asks Zarqawi to send money.

Well, maybe Zarqawi is losing Zawahiri’s support, but he’s still got Michael Moore and Ted Kennedy in his camp…

I have to say, though, I don’t know what it is that CBS finds “chilling” about the letter.

Then read this (long but worthwhile) report from Mosul by Michael Yon, if you want to know who’s winning, and who’s losing, this war.

[Update on Friday morning]

Dan Darling has further thoughts.

Read about this letter from Al Zawahiri to Al Zarqawi:

Zawahiri also complains about Zarqawi’s all-out war against the Shiites of Iraq, saying the Arab man in the street doesn’t understand why suicide bombings are killing so many fellow Muslims.

The letter also indicates Zawahiri’s life in hiding has left him cut off from news and financial support. He asks Zarqawi to provide him more information about operations in Iraq, saying he should know at least as much as the enemy knows, and he even asks Zarqawi to send money.

Well, maybe Zarqawi is losing Zawahiri’s support, but he’s still got Michael Moore and Ted Kennedy in his camp…

I have to say, though, I don’t know what it is that CBS finds “chilling” about the letter.

Then read this (long but worthwhile) report from Mosul by Michael Yon, if you want to know who’s winning, and who’s losing, this war.

[Update on Friday morning]

Dan Darling has further thoughts.

Michelle Malkin has a roundup of links on what’s increasing looking like Islamic terrorism in Oklahoma. This seems to be a story where the blogs are way ahead of the MSM. It would also be interesting to see if Jayna Davis comes up with any ties to the events of ten years ago.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Here’s more.

For the first time in a long time, from the president about the war, and the enemy:

Over the years these extremists have used a litany of excuses for violence — the Israeli presence on the West Bank, or the U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia, or the defeat of the Taliban, or the Crusades of a thousand years ago. In fact, we’re not facing a set of grievances that can be soothed and addressed. We’re facing a radical ideology with inalterable objectives: to enslave whole nations and intimidate the world. No act of ours invited the rage of the killers — and no concession, bribe, or act of appeasement would change or limit their plans for murder.

Well, that’s not quite true. Maybe if we all converted and instituted Sharia, they might stop trying to murder us. At least not as quickly. Under those circumstances, of course, they could do it at their leisure, and whim.

Now if only the administration would stop calling it a War on “Terrorism,” and give it its true name.

[Update on a rainy south Florida afternoon]

A bleg: what did people, including the press, call World War II during World War II? Did they call it that? Or just “the war”? Or something else? I always thought that the terms World War I (the Great War) and World War II were terms that arose after the war, in the context of both of them. After all, it would have made no sense to call WW I WW I before WW II, because that would imply knowledge that there would be more to come (not necessarily a tough prediction, given world history, but still). And anyway, WW I was the “war to end all wars.” Woodrow Wilson said so himself…

But now, in the context of past century, why can’t we just call this one World War IV (and the third one straight against a form of totalitarianism)?