I pulled down my Ahmadinejad post from earlier in the week.
One of the great things about the web is that you can read diverse opinions. Some sway you one day, others sway you another. If you use the web properly and take advantage of both points of view, I think it makes your opinions stronger.
On the other hand, the web also enables people to publish opinions too quickly. When that happens, it’s best to pull down the post and admit your hastiness.
Apt. 11d 
Why?
I mean, what exactly has changed your opinion on what – or is that impolite to ask, now that you pulled the post down? The post is still in my rss-reader but I can’t access the comments, so I’m a bit behind in the discussion.
Feel free to ignore if this is stepping over some etiquette boundaries!
BTW, I didn’t cringe so much at Ahmadinejad’s rants (those were expected) than at Columbia’s president first inviting Ahmadinejad and then slurring him while he’s sitting there in the audience – calling him a dictator (which he’s not), etc.
That, I found, was aggressive, bad style and really ungraceful hosting, plus it reflected really badly on Columbia.
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Well, first I read a post at CT which discussed all the human rights abuses in Iran and became convinced that Ahmadinejad was a dirtbag, and I was worried about how easily my students were led by his historical revisionism. So, I supported his right to speak, but had major concerns about what was coming out of his mouth. I felt that his speech didn’t neatly fit into the categories of free speech. Then, I read a post on Dan Drezner’s blog that reminded me that this incident was similar to times during the Cold War when Kruschev came to the US and how Iran isn’t even a threat at that level. I also think that the responses, including Columbia’s presidents comments, were so useful for debate that it more than compensated for any lies (ie. there are no gay people in Iran) that might have come out Ahmadinejad’s mouth.
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According to Russians, that Khrushchev visit had lasting repercussions. Khrushchev saw the agricultural might of the US, and attributed it to our corn production. Upon his return, vast tracts of Soviet farmland were turned into cornfields, no matter how unsuitable the location. In modern day Russia, corn is actually one of the few things that ordinary people associate with his name. (Brezhnev, believe it or not, is famous for his taste in fast cars and fast women.)
More seriously, I’m not sure that Ahmadinejad is quite the same kind of critter as Khrushchev, or that he’s engaged (or can be engaged) with the West in at all the same way. From a bit of googling, it seems like there was very direct official US contact with Khrushchev, and that it involved things like Khrushchev being shown around the US, Nixon and Khrushchev having an impromptu kitchen debate, and Nixon being allowed to condemn communism on Soviet TV.
Khrushchev was by turns, crude and naive, with an unmistakable touch of nobility. He tried (with much success) to overthrow Stalinism, but wound up overthrowing himself.
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