Azadeh Ansari: Israel Nothing More than a Mosquito to Iran!

While seeming to tone down the rhetoric, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad nonetheless spoke of "crimes" of the "Zionist regimes." Ahead of upcoming nuclear talks, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad downplayed the threat Israel poses to Iran, comparing it to an annoying bug. "Israel is nothing more than a mosquito which cannot see the broad horizon of the Iranian nation," he said Saturday in northeastern Iran's Khorassan province, according to the semi-official Fars news agency. Ahmadinejad said "regional states" were being duped into buying billions in arms from "arrogant and imperial powers," driven in part by all the talk surrounding a potential war involving Iran and Israel, the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency reported. Such military purchases, he said, are unnecessary because there is no war on the horizon between those two nations. The Iranian president alluded to "rulers" who sold "their oil" for $60 billion worth in arms, though he did not mention by name either the purchasing or selling country. Saudi Arabia is in the midst of a 20-year, $60 billion arms deal with the United States, including nearly $30 billion for F-15 fighter jets announced late last year. Ahmadinejad has long questioned the existence of the "Holocaust" and, months after taking office in October 2005, he participated in a lengthy protest called "World Without Zionism" and has repeatedly derided Israel. "With the force of God behind it, we shall soon experience a world without the United States and Zionism," he said then, according to another IRNA report!