The IDF thinks that Iran will go nuclear about 5 years sooner than the date projected by a United States National Intelligence Estimate. This doesn't come as a shock (the IDF is probably only weeks away from handing down a report that they've spotted split hooves under the Grand Ayatollah's robe and horns under his headgear). What's actually bizarre is that Mr. Olmert seems to believe that Ahmadinejad speaks for his country:
Iran, through the voice of its president [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad, calls almost daily for the destruction of the State of Israel.
Considering that the only people who like Ahmadinejad in Iran are roughly equivalent to the people who still like Bush in the U.S., a statement like the one above is hardly different from saying that the United States, through the voice of its president, speaks like a rodeo cowboy. Clearly, most in the U.S. despise their president. Easy to do, really–although I will say those Bushisms sometimes merely show a fellow who, for better or for worse (usually for worse), doesn't mince words. Sometimes cutting to the chase is necessary and refusing to do so can make you look even more like an idiot.
Mr. Bush only a few months ago astutely noted:
There's a lot of blowhards in the political process, you know, a lot of hot-air artists, people who have got something fancy to say.
How right he was. The Italian premier Prodi, with whom Olmert was meeting to discuss the Iranian problem actually said the following:
Because Iran is a regional power, it must act responsibly, and give up any nuclear military program
According to the illogic of this rhetorical sidestep, the reason for abandoning nuclear program would also be incidentally the only precondition for acquiring such a thing! He should have just reminded us that clerical fascists like Kahmeni and wacked out populist nobodies like Ahmadinejad are blowhards. That would have made some sense. No nukes for blowhards. Simple as that.