Juan Cole |
Someone should inform University of Michigan history professor Juan Cole that Mojtaba Zolnour, a top adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, has declared that the “government of the Islamic Republic of Iran has divine permission to destroy Israel.” Cole’s been dismissing the Iranian regime’s countless threats to annihilate Israel for over a decade, either blaming “bad translations” for misinterpretation or describing them as mere “rhetorical hatred.” As he put it last year at his blog, Informed Comment, “Equating hateful speech to an intent to launch aggressive warfare is silly.” What’s “silly” is not taking genocidal threats seriously, particularly from an enemy determined to build nuclear weapons.
