FOR YOU PEOPLE THAT THINK IRAN IS PERFECT......

Iran has long been one of the most important and dangerous sponsors of terrorism in the world. Although the Islamic Republic’s motivations have varied over the years, its leaders have consistently viewed ties to and support for a range of terrorist groups as an important instrument of national power. Disturbingly, Iran’s support for terrorism has become more aggressive in recent years, motivated by a mix of fear and opportunism. Iran could become even more aggressive in the years to come, exploiting the perceived protection it would gain if it developed a nuclear weapon or, if thwarted through military force or other means, using terrorists to vent its anger and take revenge. However, under current circumstances Tehran still remains unlikely to carry out the most extreme forms of terrorism, such as a mass-casualty attack similar to 9/11 or a strike involving a chemical, biological, or nuclear weapon.

Iran has said many times they want to wipe Isreal off the map.... But we should not take anything they say to heart right. Will they last time we did nothing and Hitler came about.... Some of you are so stupid.......

Many news sources repeated the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting statement by Ahmadinejad that "Israel must be wiped off the map",[7][8] an English idiom which means to "cause a place to stop existing",[9] or to "obliterate totally",[10] or "destroy completely".[11]

The Iranian presidential website stated that "the Zionist Regime of Israel faces a deadend and will under God's grace be wiped off the map," and "the Zionist Regime that is a usurper and illegitimate regime and a cancerous tumor should be wiped off the map."[12]

Ahmadinejad's phrase was "بايد از صفحه روزگار محو شود" according to the text published on the President's Office's website.[13]

Ahmadinejad himself has repeatedly said that his remark was misinterpreted. Dan Meridor, Israel's Deputy Prime Minister, has also stated that it was not what Ahmadinejad said.[14]

The translation presented by the official Islamic Republic News Agency has been challenged. Arash Norouzi says the statement "wiped off the map" was never made and that Ahmadinejad did not refer to the nation or land mass of Israel, but to the "regime occupying Jerusalem". Norouzi translated the original Persian to English, with the result, "the Imam said this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time."[15] Juan Cole, a University of Michigan Professor of Modern Middle East and South Asian History, agrees that Ahmadinejad's statement should be translated as, "the Imam said that this regime occupying Jerusalem (een rezhim-e eshghalgar-e qods) must [vanish from] the page of time (bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad)."[16] According to Cole, "Ahmadinejad did not say he was going to 'wipe Israel off the map' because no such idiom exists in Persian." Instead, "he did say he hoped its regime, i.e., a Jewish-Zionist state occupying Jerusalem, would collapse."[17] The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) translated the phrase similarly, as "this regime" must be "eliminated from the pages of history."[18]

Iranian government sources denied that Ahmadinejad issued any sort of threat. On 20 February 2006, Iran's foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki told a news conference: "How is it possible to remove a country from the map? He is talking about the regime. We do not recognize legally this regime."[19][20][21]

Shiraz Dossa, a professor of Political Science at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia, Canada, also believes the text is a mistranslation.[22]