To: His Whateverness Ahmedinajad, President of Iran
From: Sgt Mom
Re: Your recent kind letter*

1. How nice to know that we are all on haranguing terms, just now. And this makes a change from the last quarter-century…. how?

2. We are given to understand from the better sort of middle-eastern newspaper that your co-religionists have been importuning the Presidente-for-Life Fidel Castro of Cuba to convert to Islam. We personally are skeptical, wondering how on earth anyone in the same room with the Dear Leader (Western Hemisphere Version) could get in a word edgeways with a wedge and hammer. But frankly, some of these middle eastern media sources are about on par with the sort of tabloids who run stories about mutant alien babies, and reappearances of the Titanic and Elvis. Oh, dear, a fair number of our very own dear media sources have achieved that same degree of credibility. My bad, and on to my next point. (Although this may validate Blair’s Law, which states that all sorts of extremism eventually go around the bend from different directions…and finally merge in one huge pulsating ball of idiocy.)

3. Your “very scholarly” * and “fascinating”* correspondence concluded with a rather disquieting salutation… disquieting, to those with an inclination to history. According to this source, it translates as “Peace only unto those who follow the true path.”… which however way you slice it, sounds… well, a bit threatening. Rather like the comment of a certain sort of local “insurance”* agent, who says “Nice little place you have here, be a shame if something bad happened to it.”

4. Your “diplomatic”* attempt at direct communication are noted, however, and I would have but one… well, several prerequisites before a “diplomatic”* reply can be tendered, the first of which is to return the American Embassy in Teheran to American custody, scrubbed of various abusive graffiti, cleaned and comprehensively refurbished, and every scrap of US government property taken from those premises, either returned, or a like replacement. I would also demand an official delegation from your government to go around to each of the American citizens and employees taken hostage in 1979, and apologize personally to each of them, (those still living, or their next of kin) and to offer a suitable recompense of their choosing.

5. Until then, my Dear President Ahmedinajad, I have only three words in reply to your missive.

6. Rat-hole.
7. Sand
8. Pound.

Sincerely,
Sgt. Mom

* Do I have to add this— those are “viciously skeptical “quote-marks… and a small but vital correction added at 3:05 after a comment