Stupid statement on Iran by Christopher Hitchens

In an interview with Hugh Hewitt (link no longer valid), Hitchens says that the Iranians want the Bomb "in a sense, to make themselves [be] taken seriously" and are less likely to use it than, say, Saddam would have been if he had owned one. His evidence for this considered evaluation is, in large part, as follows:

Look, the statement, for example, that Israel must be completely destroyed is a very old statement, made by Ayatollah Khomeini. It's been repeated routinely every year on anti-Israel day. I've heard it pronounced many, many times at Friday prayers in Iran. I've been to these routines. I think Ahmadinejead was rather amazed to find what an effect he got for saying it for what to many people was the first time. Of course, he made it nastier by adding vile innuendoes about the Holocaust and so forth, but this is largely rhetoric.

So you see, numerous Iranians repeat their wish to destroy Israel so often—they even have an "anti-Israel day" for crying out loud!—that they can't actually mean it. It's just letting off a harmless bit of steam. Hang on, though . . . could it perhaps be working up steam? Hmm, hadn't thought of that.

At the risk of belaboring the obvious, this is about as sensible as saying that if Hitler had actually been anti-Semitic he would never have indicated it so straightforwardly in Mein Kampf. Hitchens might have had a point if Iran had long possessed the means to obliterate Israel and had never used them. But, of course, it has never possessed those means.

Update ('06/06/08): Condemnation of Christopher (not to be confused with Peter) Hitchens also comes from the anti-Zionist Christian Right.