Mahmoud Ahmadi Nejad
Okay... so this guy is clearly a total nutjob... from denying the fact of the holocaust to suggesting that isreal should be moved to europe and/or totally wiped out, to continuing to pursue nukes (not proven, but pretty clear, imo)... he's loopy as a loon.
I mean, he's not a (understandable and predictable) evil totalitarian dicatator like Saddam or Kim Jong Il, or even a (reliable) total fundamentalist/jihadist like the taliban leadership was... but i think he's probably more dangerous than all the other threats to world stability put together right now...
why?
well... for starters, he's already alienating iran's only real freinds, former soviet states (remember that other islamic nations aren't a fan of their dominant sect- sunni(right?)), and there's no way US-Iran diplomatic relations will resume while he leads... he seems to be ignoring and/or manipulating the europeans efforts towards reconciliation and diplomacy, building bombs, maybe screwing with the energy markets a bit...
If there was no war in iraq, we might be seriously considering a pre-emptive strike on iran, to stop this lunatic before he nukes somebody just for the hell of it or says the wrong thing... or maybe isreal will ignite a religious war by wiping terhan straight off the face of the earth when his rhetoric gets too threatening(don't think they wouldn't if they thought they had to. also, if threatened seriously by nukes, there's little doubt that isreal'll use 'em, maybe pre-emptivly).
so here's my thought:
If a military solution becomes clearly imperitive to maintain the region's stability, does our presense and expense in iraq hurt or help our ability to sucessfully deal with a reckless nut like this?