Can Nations, Regimes, be Evil?

As the world is flabbergasted by the Iranian President’s remark that amounts to nothing less than a desire to exterminate millions of people, the question if a nation and regime can be evil keeps beating my mind. An evil ‘nation’ would include the country’s entire population, which sounds like nonsense; people go on with their daily life and cannot be blamed for their oppressive governments. Yet, millions are supporting the regime and others are quietly standing by, allowing their country to slip further down the dangerous path. Are they excluded from moral obligations? If so, how can we say they are part of the nation? If individuals are not responsible for the way the collective is heading, what make those individual different from the hens, sheep and donkeys that occupy the same land? We can’t say that Germany’s entire population was evil during the Second World War. Yet, something was obviously missing in the collective psyche. If we turn the question around one more time, the Iranian President and many with him have not spared any efforts since 1979 to brand the Israeli nation and leadership as evil. Not worthy of existence. Ought to be wiped off the map. How can we convince them that it is not true? That they are two nations who have no other choice than to learn to co-exist? The Israeli government will obviously conclude that it is not possible; the best we can hope for is to keep Iran’s regime within the boundaries. When they cross, the Israelis will hit. Another war. And we will ask: Why? Was there no other possibilities?

Less doomsday-ish: Judith has noted two comments from my neighbors in the blogsphere, first SM and then Jeffrey:

And what's funny is that Iranian political envoys are being summoned by European governments and asked for an explanation for A.J.'s remarks. Which makes me wonder: which part of "Israel should be wiped out" did you not get exactly? That wasn't clear enough for you? Dude, it was said in a conference called "A world without Zionism". Ehh...Hello.....anybody home? Which part needs further explaining to you? Oh god, why does Europe have to be so retarded?

As support for this claim, consider, if you will, wise Sandmonkey's ripping commentary on Ahmadinejad's recent injunction that the Israelis ought to be "wiped off the map,", which is surely reminiscent of Nasser's blustering "pushed into the sea" prediction back in the sixties that blew up in his face – literally (*cough*1967*cough*).