MEANWHILE AT THE AXIS OF EVIL: Iran and Iraq -- two nations separated by a consonant -- are ruled by regimes that aren't only evil but straight-up goofy.
UPI reports on a testy verbal volley between the two villain-nations.
Iraq's vice president [pause for laughter] fired the first salvo when he claimed that "the Persians have always been the allies of Zionists" and that they have "ambitions in the Arab world like the Zionists." Apparently offended that anyone would question Iran's hatred of Israel, an Iranian spokesman "accused the Iraqi government of offering the biggest service to Israel by invading Kuwait in 1990 and starting a war with Iran in 1980," and claimed that "Israel benefited most from both wars while the Iraqi government only provoked discord and disputes among the Arab and Islamic countries by invading Kuwait."
Unwilling to let sleeping camels lie, Iran's state-controlled newspaper characterized the Iraqi vice president's remarks as an attempt to "please the United States" and cautioned Baghdad against stoking hostilities with Iran as a means to appeasing the U.S. Of course, the Iranians didn't explain how Iraq accusing Iran of being pro-Israeli would result in better U.S.-Iraqi relations, but clear and reasoned thinking isn't a exactly a hallmark of psychotic regimes.
What's interesting is that at a time when the survival of both regimes is in serious jeopardy, Iran and Iraq are labeling the other as the region's chief troublemaker. Perhaps it's a lame, between-the-lines message to the United States that translates as "HE DID IT!! TAKE HIM!!! HE'S THE ONE YOU WANT!"
