U.S. & Iran---Friends Seperated by Religious Fanatics at the Top

Two countries, whose people have often liked each other, are now in the hands of reckless religious fanatics. The United States is ruled by a lawless Christian fundamentalist who has rained destruction and death on a Middle Eastern country which had not attacked it, and which he sees as a bed of infidels.

Iran is ruled by a similar head of state, a Muslim fundamentalist who wishes to have the means destroy a Middle Eastern country which has not attacked it and which he also sees as a bed of infidels.

This leaves us, in both America and Iran, the more informed and less fanatical of us wondering what how we got in this mess. Both leaders were selected in dubious, dishonest elections. Both are messianic in their beliefs...that they have the one sole truth, and that god smiles upon them.

I feel like if I had the phone number of a guy like me in Tehran, I’d call him up and we’d both be tearing our hair out about this situation. Neither of us wants to destroy the other, invade each other’s countries, or any others we can think of. We’d probably like to sit down and have a beer and shoot the shit, because the shit is the same all over.

He’d like me to put on some American music. I’d like him to put on some of what Americans call “World Music,” (that which comes from someplace other than our own back yards).

But no, we have to sit in our own houses without contact, wondering if these nutcases who think they have a pipeline to divinity are going to start a war over…over what? Has anybody figured that out?

These leaders appeal to the worst in humanity. They must be stopped. A small minority wants either side to start killing.

Hey, guy in Tehran. I want to tell you that there are lots of people trying to remove our lunatic from office. I’m hoping there are like-minded folks in your neighborhood. Maybe we’ll be glad to see each other again.

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