Thanks for the update. I'll be interested to see the emerging details of what this story was actually based on...it still appears to not have been "made up from whole cloth" :-)

The president of Iran also has almost no power. Rafsanjani (who was president then) was slowly taking power from the mullahs with support of a large Iranian majority. Then some other country started rattling nukes and threatening Iran. That literally undermined all reform and put the mullahs completely back in power. As a result, Iran's current president is a hard liner; the mullah's #1 choice.

Did we learn from Cuba? Everytime Castro was threatened by American rhetoric, then Castro became very popular. Cuba is having severe energy problems today. Their eight electric generators are old, have support problems, and are making Castro look bad. Anti-Castro graffitti has actually been observed. Now if America can just keep ignoring Castro, then maybe Cubans will demand change. Containment is always a far more powerful solution.

Meanwhile back in Iran, the mullahs are now safely and firmly entrenched; control Iran's government. The mullahs are also the reason why Iran has a nuclear program. Reformists were against nukes until ... well pre-emption really did fix Iran. It wiped out the entire Iran reform movement. The current president in Iran is a hardliner and strong supporter of religious extremism. Rafanjani - because of pre-emption - is also a strong supporter of the mullahs. Religious extremists control Iran's government.

I suspect the original story will have more legs than the retraction, which could easily have been the idea...

haha That's funny. Probably the Iraqus' interpretation of the US political correctness methods.

The idea behind what?

The original (apparently false report) Like "lets insult our Ironic friends just in case someone still might like them."

To get a "Iran==Nazi" vibe going.

Well there's plenty to hate about the Iran govt without having to make any of it up.

Well, yeah, but - - NAZIS!

I'm with HM on this one, I mean after all the whole "new pearl harbor" thing worked like a charm, so why not trot out another WWII enemy and resurrect it?

And everyone knows that Nazis are the triple-dog-dare of bad comparisons...

really, actually laughing aloud

Anyway you guys, the story started in Canadian media so it's really those nasty warfaring Canucks pushing the comparison.

And one reason it was repeated so quickly is because it easily passed the sniff test. Pres. Ahmadinejad has put holocaust denial into speeches recently.

To see into the mind of Ahmadinejad we need only read the text of his letter to Bush.

I don't think Canada has a nationalized media. Nutters can own papers up there, too.