The long-ass letter in question

I had to go to an Iranian website to find this damn thing. Way to go, American journalists...We don't need to read the letter, we just need the spin on the letter from both sides...

Anyway, they split it up into what seems like 7 parts. It's a little difficult to navigate because the "MORE>" tag at the bottom of each page doesn't work. You have to click on each part separately from here. I don't know how long the letter will be up, but here are the links:

Full text of President Ahmadinejad's letter to George Bush

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

By the way, (PBUH) stands for "Praise Be Upon Him." I honestly don't know what to think of the letter. In some ways it is still defiant, and full of crap. As expected, there's a diatribe about the illegitimacy of the existence of Israel, but it seems more hypothetical than the rhetoric we usually hear, which I guess could be considered progress.

The Iranian Congress was apparently pissed off that AhmadiNejad sent this letter without getting their approval first (maybe our Congress and their Congress could get together and complain about their unilateral leaders together). The only reason I could think that they would complain is that it seems a little reminiscient of Khrushchev's first letter to Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I don't know if the English translation is accurate, but there is a certain desperation to the letter.

It seems like AhmadiNejad might want to step down from the brink but he's got political reasons at home for not doing so. Regardless, we shouldn't brush off this letter so quickly, even if it's not what we want to hear. We need to sit down and talk with Iran before both sides start assuming that armed conflict is inevitable.