Ever hear of the Cyrus Cylinder? Apparently, neither has AhmadiNejad. From the Iran Chamber Society:

The charter of Cyrus the Great, a baked-clay Aryan language (Old Persian) cuneiform cylinder, was discovered in 1878 in excavation of the site of Babylon. In it, Cyrus the Great described his human treatment of the inhabitants of Babylonia after its conquest by the Iranians.

And from Wikipedia’s page on Cyrus the Great:

Although the cylinder reflects a long tradition in Mesopotamia where, as early as the third millennium BC, kings such as Urukagina began their reigns with declarations of reforms, the cylinder of Cyrus is often referred to in modern times as the “first charter of human rights.” In 1971, the United Nations translated and published it into all of its official languages. The cylinder decrees the normal themes of Persian rule: religious tolerance, abolishment of slavery, freedom of choice of profession and expansion of the empire.

Ironic? I kid you not.

• Political Cartoons
• Iraq, Iran, War, Money, Me, and US
• The Politics of Security
• 77 Ways to Get Traffic to Your Site