You've probably already read the Spiegel Online interview of Iran's Presidential figurehead Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, linked on Drudge. I was all set to filed it under "I've heard all this hogwash before, so what else ain't new?" but then, towards the end, was this rather bold—faced 'statement' by the Spiegel interviewer; "The United States has suffered a de facto defeat in Iraq." 
 
Aside from all the expected, inane rantings and evasive non—answers by Ahmadinejad I found that line, lets just say, disconcerting. I certainly wasn't surprised that, as former Hussein collaborators, liberal Germans would be eager to assuage their guilt by describing the current situation in Iraq as a determinate loss for the US. But having that propaganda stated as if it were fact in an online interview with the biggest threat to peace and stability in the Middle East and beyond, was, again, disconcerting. Any time you make a statement such as that and throw in a strong qualifier, e.g. de facto, every liberal reading it carves it into the stone between their ears and runs straight for their favorite water cooler/blog to share/spread the great news!
 
Up to that point in the interview, the Spiegel folks seemed to be somewhat objective in both their questions and the way they attempted to dispute Ahmadinejad's obviously faux retorts and asinine assertions. But in the end the result was twenty thousand plus wasted words that belong in print rather than online. At least that way they could be put to good use under puppies or around fish.  
 
P.S. Miss Ahmadinejad doesn't have the cojones to show her face at this year's World Cup. There, at least now you have one definitive answer from the der Spiegel's pseudo interview. 
 
Joseph Crowley    5 30 06