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Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the feisty and foolish President of Iran, was coming back from one of his frequent addresses to students, who always agree with him 100%, when a camel walked out onto the road his limo was zipping along.

'Look, a camel,' called his perceptive driver, slamming on the brakes.

'Just give him a minute,' Mahmoud observed sagely, 'and I'm sure he'll cross the road to get to the other side.'

'Why?' the bodyguard next to the driver asked, inadvertently poking himself in the eye with his AK-47.

'To get a drink of water,' witty Mahmoud suggested.

'Ha,' chuckled the driver and the bodyguard, making up, through their feigned camaraderie, the usual 'Ha, ha.'

But, instead of behaving as projected, the camel ambled up to the limo and looked in at Mahmoud. Then, quite to the Mayor-turned-President's surprise, it began to move its lips as if it was speaking in Farsi.

Ever the obliging pawn of the ruling mullahs, Mahmoud rolled down his window, and asked, 'Can I help you?'

'Yez, Prez,' the camel replied, with a curious accent that seemed to be due to its rubbery lips.

Astonished, Mahmoud exclaimed, 'How can a camel talk?'

'It'z a zpecial gift from Allah.'

'Really?' the President pondered.

'Yez. There I waz, zleeping by a watering hole last night, when Allah appeared on my back, and zaid, 'I have a problem.'

'I didn't know what to say,' the camel went on, 'because I didn't know how to talk.

"Then Allah zaid, 'Let'z talk.'

'And, suddenly, I knew how.

"So I zaid, 'Thankz, what's up?'

'Allah sighed, and told me, 'Try az I might, I can't find a zsingle Iranian with the courage to have an honest talk with Mahmoud. Zo I've decided to give you the azzignment.''

'A lowly camel, appearing on behalf of Allah?' Mahmoud questioned.

'No, a camel chozen by Allah,' came the wise reply. 'Zo I zaid to Allah, 'How can I help?''

'And what did Allah say?' Mahmoud half scoffed.

The camel glanced at the bodyguard with the AK-47 and trembled with fear.

'Relax,' Mahmoud told him. 'He won't shoot. I promise.'

'Thankz,' the camel replied.

'So what did Allah tell you?'

'He said, 'Go to Mahmoud and tell him he has a suicide wish.''

'A suicide wish?' Ahmadinejad exclaimed, and jumped out of the limo. 'Allah told you that?'

'Yez, he did,' the camel said. 'Not only that, he said you're acting it out for the whole nation of Iran.'

'Now, why would I do that?' Mahmoud demanded.

'He zaid you mizinterpreted the Koran.'

'I did?'

'Yez, he said that you think after you die you'll go to Paradize az a martyr and have a zubliminal wish to go there. But he zaid you forgot that he created you so you would live before you die. In fact, he created the whole univerze so you could live before you die. So ending your life by choice defeatz his primary purpose. Naturally, he'z upzet. Very upzet.'

'But how am I trying to commit suicide?'

'He zaid with your polizy of nuclear development.'

The bodyguard knew any negative talk about the Iranian centrifuge subterfuge would anger Mahmoud, who had somehow conflated the prestige of Iran with his, along with his superintending mullahs', nuke-a-duke policy. So he hefted his principal means of communication, the AK-47, and asked, 'Want me to silence him? I can do it without admitting it.'

'No,' Mahmoud replied insightfully. 'A camel who can talk should not be shot.'

The camel did not take the bodyguard's suggestion in stride, and uttered, 'Uh-oh.' Then it turned to trot away.

'Come back here and tell me what else Allah said,' Mahmoud commanded him.

The camel stopped but only to call back, 'He zaid you know you're involved in a gamble you can't win.'

'He said that?'

'Yez, he did,' the camel dared to affirm, and glanced at the bodyguard. 'Don't zhoot or I'll zhut up.'

'He won't,' Mahmoud assured the spooked camel, and turned to the bodyguard. 'He may be a camel, but he's a messenger of Allah. So no gunplay.' Then he looked back at the eloquent dromedary. 'Did he say why I can't win?'

'Yez, he zaid that the closer you get to succezz, the more other nationz will want to ztop you.' The camel swallowed hard and blurted out. 'They will bomb you before they let you have a bomb.'

'He zaid that?' Mahmoud asked, and then, realizing he had just slipped into the curious accent of the camel, corrected himself. 'I mean, he said that?'

'Yez, he did,' the camel confirmed. 'Not only zhat, he zaid you're telling the other countriez you're only doing it for a reazon that izn't credible, because Iran haz plenty of oil, so it doesn't need nuclear power for energy.'

'Anything else?' Mahmoud asked, grinding his teeth a bit.

'The most important zing: He told me to tell you to ztop.'

'Or?'

The camel swallowed hard, and then said, 'I'm supposed to go from one city to the next and tell people to stop you, so they don't have to die with you.'

The bodyguard waved his AK-47 in the sun.

The camel noticed it, and said, 'Zo, quick! What's your decision?'

'My decision is, you must be a mirage. Whoever heard of a talking camel ' especially one who claims to be a messenger from Allah?'

'I think you're right, boss,' the bodyguard called, and wiggled his rifle. 'Want me to give it the hole-in-the-head test?'

Ahmadinejad took out his handkerchief and wiped his forehead, considering the possibility. Then he said, 'Why waste bullets on a mirage?'

Getting back into the limo, he huffed skeptically, 'Drive on. And don't either one of you tell anybody I was talking to a camel.'