Ahmadinejad to Obama: Choose Between Israel and Iran

That's the headline of a story in Ha'Aretz today. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, addressing the 25th Session of the Standing Committee for Economic and Commercial Cooperation (COMCEC) of the Organization of the Islamic Conference in Turkey, said that U.S. President Barack Obama should make a choice in order to fulfill his campaign promise of change. And that choice was between support for Israel or friendship with Iran.

Let's see now. On the one hand we have Iran, a country that conspired with Hezbollah to murder 220 U.S. Marines in the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing and over 60 people in the bombing of the U.S. Embassy that same year; that supports the insurgents who have murdered U.S. troops in Iraq; that works with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez to subvert U.S. interests in Latin America; that is rapidly developing a nuclear weapons capability in defiance of the U.S. and Western Europe; and that is now doing its best to separate Turkey from NATO. It is also a brutal dictatorship that crushes dissent and is conducting show trials and executions of the regime's political opponents.

On the other hand, we have Israel, a democratic country that is probably one of the most pro-American nations in the world, that supports U.S. positions in the United Nations and the international arena more consistently than any other nation, that provides the U.S. with important technological developments, and whose port city of Haifa, according to GlobalSecurity.org, is the favorite port of call of the U.S. Navy Sixth Fleet, accounting for roughly 50% of all visits in the Eastern Mediterranean, with an average of 20 vessels, including aircraft carriers, visiting the port each year, many to utilize the harbor's excellent and unique repair and servicing facilities.

Gee, I know which one I would choose.