Left I on the News

Double barrels from alleged historian Victor Davis Hanson this morning, as he claims that "Iran is even more dangerous, vowing both to become a nuclear power and wipe out Israel." Not to belabor something I've written about before, but just some quick links for newer readers:

Iran, which of course is developing nuclear power, not only has not "vowed to become a nuclear power" (which means, to everyone in the world, to have nuclear weapons, not nuclear power plants), but it has repeatedly vowed that it does not intend to do so. Indeed, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has even issued a Fatwa stating "that the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons are forbidden under Islam and that the Islamic Republic of Iran shall never acquire these weapons."

Iran has never "vowed to wipe out Israel." It has predicted that the state (that's the political entity) of Israel will "vanish from the page of time"; at the same time, the Iranian Foreign Ministry has explicitly stated that "Iran is loyal to its commitments based on the U.N. charter and it has never used or threatened to use force against any country."

Hanson may think that Iran is lying about both of these things; that is his right. But we know that he's lying when he makes claims about what Iran has "vowed" to do.