Well, the best I can say is that we’re still here.

The fruit and nut cake President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, did not “light up the sky” over Jerusalem as some of our more excitable blog brethren were breathlessly speculating in recent weeks. Perhaps some of us were hoping that rather than light up the sky, he would light up himself and disappear to join the prophet in heaven in a blaze of self-immolated glory.

No such luck.

In fact, it appears judging by the actions of the Iranian government today that it’s just more of the same for a man competing either for “Best Hitler Impersonation in 60 years” or the coveted title of “Most Outrageous Goofball on Planet Earth.” The former making him a dangerous man indeed. The latter still making him a threat but one that we can probably manage without overturning the apple cart in the Middle East.

But that’s the problem with this fellow. Do we take him seriously when he says:

If you want to have good relations with the Iranian people in the future, you should acknowledge the right and the might of the Iranian people, and you should bow and surrender to the might of the Iranian people. If you do not accept this, the Iranian people will force you to bow and surrender.

Or when he says:

Is it possible for us to witness a world without America and Zionism? But you had best know that this slogan and this goal are attainable, and surely can be achieved…

How to attain the goal of enjoying a world without America or Zionism? Here’s Hassan Abbassi, a Revolutionary Guards intelligence theoretician who teaches at Al-Hussein University and someone considered to be Ahmadinejad’s strategic guru:

We have a strategy drawn up for the destruction of Anglo-Saxon civilization… we must make use of everything we have at hand to strike at this front by means of our suicide operations or by means of our missiles. There are 29 sensitive sites in the U.S. and in the West. We have already spied on these sites and we know how we are going to attack them.

Personally, I think that it would take far fewer than 29 targets hit to destroy what we now know as America but maybe the thug just wants to be certain. But I urge you not to mention this to the left. You see, by their way of thinking the fact that we have plans to invade Iran means that we are going to invade, no ifs, ands or buts. However, if the lefties see what Abbassi is planning they will be forced to make a 180 degree flip flop and say “Well of course, all countries have plans. That doesn’t mean anything.”

And they’d probably be right. With at least one of those theories. How long do you think it will take them to catch on that they can’t be right about both?

No matter. It is Ahmadinejad’s jew hating, holocaust denying rhetoric that has the sane world up in arms. That and the small matter of his nuclear program. Are we supposed to take the man at his word when he says it is for peaceful purposes only? If so, we are being asked to take the word of a serial exaggerator and liar. For if, as we are led to believe by some, Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric can safely be ignored since he’s only playing to the home folks, do praytell how one can divine when he’s propagandizing and when he’s telling the truth? In other words, who has insight into the man’s soul in order to tell us when he’s lying and when he’s not?

Our betters on the left, of course, Ye needn’t ask. That’s why any attempt to delay, impede, or otherwise destroy his nuclear enrichment capability is seen as just more of the same from the crazy neocons running our government. The dhimmi left has already decided there’s nothing to be done except believe Ahmadinejad because the alternative would mean that they were wrong and George Bush was right.

Never fear, however. We will keep talking to Iran – fat lot of good it will do. But from Iran’s perspective, it helps them play our useful idiots if they seem sincere about talking:

Iran’s semi-official news agency reported today that Tehran has “rejected suspension of its nuclear activities” as demanded by the United Nations Security Council but has proposed a “new formula for resolving the issue through talks.”

The details of the new formula were not immediately apparent.

Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator delivered Tehran’s response to the ambassadors of Britain, France, Germany, China, Russia and Switzerland and was briefing them on the substance, reported Iran’s Fars news agency.

Diplomats in Washington, Tehran and European capitals had said yesterday that the Iranian government is willing to enter negotiations and to consider a freeze of the program, but it will not accept a freeze as a precondition for the talks.

Now we’ll have another ring around the rosy at the United Nations as Britain, France, Germany, and the US struggle to come up with sanctions watered down enough so that China and Russia will accept them. Under discussion are sanctions of the harshest sort like denying Iranian leaders the opportunity to fly on foreign airlines and delaying the mullah’s entry into the WTO.

That’s showing ‘em.

In the meantime, Iran is making it very clear that they have a very good reason for keeping their nuclear program under wraps:

Iran turned away U.N. inspectors from an underground site meant to shelter its uranium enrichment program from attack, diplomats said Monday, while the country’s supreme leader insisted Tehran will not give up its contentious nuclear technology.

Iran’s unprecedented refusal to allow access to its underground facility at Natanz could seriously hamper U.N. attempts to ensure Tehran is not trying to produce nuclear weapons, and might violate the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, diplomats and U.N. officials told The Associated Press.

Speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information, the diplomats and officials from the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, described other signs of Iranian defiance.

They said Iran denied entry visas to two IAEA inspectors in the last few weeks after doing the same earlier this summer for Chris Charlier, the expert heading the U.N. agency’s team to Tehran. Additionally, they said, other inspectors were given only single-entry visas during their visits to Iran last week, instead of the customary multiple-entry permits.

And just in case we didn’t get the message to “bow and surrender” to the Iranian regime, they tried a little strong arm action today:

Iran attacked and seized control of a Romanian oil rig working in its Persian Gulf waters this morning one week after the Iranian government accused the European drilling company of ``hijacking’’ another rig.

An Iranian naval vessel fired on the rig owned by Romania’s Grup Servicii Petroliere (GSP) in the Salman field and took control of its radio room at about 7:00 a.m. local time, Lulu Tabanesku, Grup’s representative in the United Arab Emirates said in a phone interview from Dubai today.

``The Iranians fired at the rig’s crane with machine guns,’’ Tabanesku said. ``They are in control now and we can’t contact the rig.’’ The Romanian company has 26 workers on the platform, he said.

Grup had a contract with an Iranian oil firm whose activities were suspended last year due to corruption charges and (lefty tin foil hat alert) for having dealings with Halliburton. Evidently, the Iranians feel the rig is theirs even if they’re not paying for it.

Sounds to me like Haliburton is trying to engineer a confrontation between Iran and the West. If so, they did a lousy job picking Romania as the pigeon. I mean, you think they would have at least tried for a “B-List” European country like Spain or Portugal or maybe Monaco. Hell, Lichtenstein would have been a better choice than Romania for God’s sake!

Seriously, the western media will simply file this incident under “Outrageous Iranian Provocations” and let it go at that. How much longer they can keep pretending that “wiping Israel off the map” and “bow and surrender” is not really worth reporting on remains to be seen. Hopefully they will realize it sooner rather than later.

Otherwise, we’ll be the ones seeing a “light in the sky” someday.

UPDATE

Allah has a nice round up of blog and MSM react to the news that the Iranians want to talk but not if suspending their program is a precondition.

That nuke facility at Natanz shows activity that denotes centrifuge assembly. Talk about speaking out of both sides of your mouth…