More evidence of the radicalism of the Iranian regime:
Rumors that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was one of the 1979 kidnappers of Americans at the US Embassy in Tehran have yet to be authenticated. But, as PJM’s Meir Javedanfar reports here for the first time in the Western media, Mohammad Ali Jafari – the new commander (as of September 1) of the powerful Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps – indeed was one of those original hostage takers.
Details are here.
There has been a spate of news stories recently speculating about impending U.S. military action. The Iranian issue is a controversial one but a tidbit like this underscores the fact that this is a highly radical regime. It poses a threat to the U.S., although the domestic debate now centers on the degree of the threat and its timetable. Ironically, the Bush administration’s credibility problems on Iraq have undermined potent arguments about the degree of the Iranian threat.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.