Iranian President Gives Hate Speech: "Israel must be wiped off the map"

In the aftermath of the Iraq war, neighboring Iran made a troubling and disappointing move back to extremism by replacing Mohammad Khatami as president with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (pictured).

The New York Times reports Ahmadinejad stated: "Israel must be wiped off the map." This is despicable and hateful.

We obviously need to come up with a more constructive approach to assist the moderates and liberals in Iran who do not want a closed society but would rather be part of the larger world community. I'm afraid that the U.S. invaision of Iraq undercut them and it will be a while until they can start to turn Iran away from extremism and back to some of the forward making steps of a decade ago.