Did Ahmadinejad (former President of Iran) really say Israel should be ‘wiped off the map’? Apparently not - mistranslation and lack of context so the Washington Post gave itself and everyone who reported Ahmadinejad's supposed words a Pinocchio award for reporting that he did say it.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/did-ahmadinejad-really-say-israel-should-be-wiped-off-the-map/2011/10/04/gIQABJIKML_blog.htmlWhat do people think about the latest narratives coming out about Iran?
There has been a long-standing narrative pushed by Israel and its supporters that Israel is under existential threat of attack from Iran. Apparently Israel is determined to scupper any chance of Biden resurrecting the 2015 Iran nuclear accord that was agreed by Obama (along with UK, France, China, Russia and Germany). The deal was an agreement to lift crippling sanctions against Iran in return for Iran curbing its nuclear programme. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) monitors consistently verified that Iran was complying with the terms of the deal but in 2018 Trump quit the deal and re-imposed sanctions against Iran as he thought the deal was a temporary fix and he sought to weaken Iran.
Despite Trump's withdrawal from the deal it seems that Iran still has the ability to exploit instability and repression in its surrounding areas by arming and influencing its proxies in the region (including encouraging them not to follow international norms) and thereby turn them into capable political or military opponents to US allies and interests in the region. For example, Arab Sunni groups backed by the U.S. in both Syria and Iraq have lost every major political and military conflict. Iran split the Kurdish leadership and the US-backed Kurds lost in October 2017 to Iran’s proxies in the Iraqi city of Kirkuk.
Presumably the recent Israeli assassination of Iran's nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, is an attempt to try to provoke a revenge attack by Iran or diminish Iran's capabilities, probably in the hope that this would derail any Biden diplomatic initiatives with Iran. But it does not prevent Iran from continuing to arm its proxies and exploit the ensuing instability caused in the region from foreign assassinations by states. Where does that leave Biden and US foreign policy in relation to Iran?
