[Skybird]

P_Funk,

Pakistan is NOT friendly to the US, or any other western nation. It is betraying the US, and very massively so, since at least the late 70s, probably earlier. Pakistans decisions until today have costed the lives of Western soldiers, they are supporting the Taleban, and presently their secret service has turned probably more Taleban than the Taleban are themselves. since they take benefit from the drug income in Afghanistan, they are not interested to keep the flow of drugs low. In the 80s they even accepted that a large proportion of their own population became addicted, to get the finances they needed to serve their foreign financial duties due to weapons deals. It'S a long story. what I mean is simply: they are not friendly to the US, in no way. If I would have been the americans, there would have been no war against Iraq, but after the war in Afghanistan a massive military display of combat power at the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, to make them stay out and make it clear to them if they continue to interferte and play with cheats and marked cards, they would have to pay the price. It would have been no gesture, but a major great-scale deployment: all what had been sent to Iraq, and then very much more. That friendly to us I see them.

You also said "everyone is neglecting that Ahmadinejadh..." Well, I mentioned that the clerics are not happy with him, did I. Also, the former president Rafsandschani in the West was seen as pragmatic, West-oriented, less dogmatic - the prime exmaple of this strnage constuction of a "moderate Muslim". Short: the West bought the story this man wanted it to believe. While he certainly was pragmatic, he nevertheless influenced some very orthodox decisions and develeopements in Iran, and smiled and was kind to the West (in a way), knowing that this would appease western opposition to Iran, and it did. - If you think that the clerics are less determined to get the bomb, then you are fooling yourself. they are, but are willing to take longer time if that helps to hide the project, and would be willing to give the impression of being less confronting to the West, if that helps to go on with the work, maybe at a slower pace, but with greater safety and smaller risks to get engaged in war. So, they know very well that the revolution is no longer capable to fascinate the young, many of them are more pragmatic in the meaning of being clever enough not to provoke the west like this idiot in office now does, and almost commanding Western attention onto the program time and again. Seen that way, Ahmadinejadh has done real damage to the Iranian cause, and thus he is not very popular with the clerics. their program never will go on as peacefully and unnoticed again as before him. It's just that he is not cleric and thus apparently sees the need to raise public support for him by giving the people what his clients like: provoking the west, and getting away with hit: "see how tough I am! Vote for me, again!" In the end, he is just a big-mouthed, arrogant uneducated prole; maybe having instincts, but certainly lacking brain; crafty (=gerissen), but intellectually extremely stupid.