Iran in diplomatic shit

Is Iran hardliner president Ahmadinejad's comments about "erasing Israel from the map" calculated diplomacy or simply ideologically driven? Kaveh L Afrasiabi said in his recent article Iran, Israel: The good, the bad and the ugly:

"Calculated or not (to protect Syria?), Iran is undermining itself in the battle for world public opinion with respect to its right to nuclear technology, by making official statements that kindle the images of another Holocaust."

Afrasiabi also discussed about Iran's foreign poliy position regarding Palestine and Israel in the past few decades. He also stressed Iran's complex, part-Islamic, part-pre Islamic and specifically "Persianist" history and identity.

Categories: Diplomacy, Iran, History, Palestine