Those observers of American history who are able to separate their personal demons from their observations — or whose personal demons aren’t activated by the situation at hand — have long been aware that translations are among the pri…

And yet Hitchen’s defenders here insist that Cole’s motive in offering the proper translation must have been to mislead readers into the fantastical belief that neither the Iranian president, or the Ayatollah, had any objections whatsoever to the existence of the Jewish state which was established in 1948.

And who are the readers who we are asked to believe to have been in danger of drawing such an inference from the proper translation? A highly educated private group of academics, and policy makers.

Once again, here is Coles translation:

The phrase he then used as I read it is “The Imam said that this regime occupying Jerusalem (een rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods) must [vanish from] from the page of time (bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad).”

Cole nowhere says this is about only the occupation of Jerusalem; he makes clear rather that it is the regime which Ahmadinejad is saying “must vanish”.

I simply see no reason to believe that Cole’s translation isn’t accurate. No one has pointed out a single word which has been wrongly intrepreted. In order to buy any of this critique of Cole, I think that one would have to believe that Cole’s critics somehow have a better grasp of Farsi than they seem to have of English.

So Cole was absolutely right to draw attention to the use of this particular speech/phrase to dishonestly demonize Ahmadinejad in the press (a necessary precondition for going to war).

So you don’t think it’s a significant phrase? Cole’s point is that some people (Zionists, neocons and warmongers probably in his mind) are using this unimportant, negligible phrase to whip up war fever against Iran.

Hitchens point is that attacking Iran is a bad idea (many regular Iranians like America b/c they don’t like their government, a fact Cole never ever mentions). However, truth and accuracy matter.

Today at his blog, Cole wrote: “Although [Shimon] Peres says that Ahmadinejad threatened to destroy Israel, he did not in fact menace Israel with a military attack.”

Still, threatening to destroy a fellow member of the UN is bad enough. Imagine if Canada threatened to destroy us?

“Ahmadinejad views Israel the way President Gerald Ford viewed the Soviet Union. He wishes it would vanish as a regime, but he is not prepared to launch a military attack to accomplish that goal.”

So inaccurate. Ford didn’t give speeches saying the Soviet Union should be wiped from the map. “Vanish” is such a nonthreatening word. It’s like Ahmadinejad wished the “regime” was voted out of office.

Cole does write “Since Iran sits in the United Nations with Israel, Ahmadinejad is in contravention of the UN charter in rejecting Israel’s legitimacy.”

Israel’s Defense Minister told Peres to knock it off and not use unimportant negligible phrases that threaten Iran in turn with being whiped from the map, a phrase with no significance apparently.

You, on the other hand, insist on applying some global significance to the issue of this one particular phrase. It is glaringly, unavoidably obvious that Cole is a harsh critic of the Iranian regime and the man who is now its titular head, that he was so long before the Hitchens piece appeared and that he continues to be so now.

Rather than recognize this, you choose to believe that his entire approach to Iran is encapsulated in his insistence that five words were mistranslated and subsequently used for inimical purposes. As I said earlier, even if his translation is wrong, the charge that he’s an apologist for Ahamdinejad is foolish. Worse than foolish, at this point.

But at least you’ve dropped the flip-flopping notion. That’s progress, I guess.