Mr. Hannity: Although Shah Pahlavi "led an often oppressive regime...our alliance [with him was]...strategically crucial". (p. 89)

My response: Here we observe two related ideas: the law of the balance of power and the principle of the lesser of two evils. Thruout history, nations have tended to collect into various loose federations in order to increase their security against an aggressive nation or to balance out one another's power. Through such politics, nations strove to preserve international harmony and to correct disharmonies and divisions. The principle of the lesser of two evils holds that a state party can side with a second state party which is generating or promoting certain evils for the purpose of mutually counteracting a third state party which is generating or promoting even worse evils.

Mr. Hannity (Quoting Jeane J. Kirkpatrick): "'[The] Carter administration...actively collaborated in the replacement of moderate autocrats friendly to American interests with less friendly autocrats of extremist persuasion.'" (p. 66)

My response: This statement typifies a biased Republican slant on history, which holds that Carter openly surrendered our national interests to foreign extremists, particularly to Iranian radical Ayatollah Khomeini. In fact, this incorrect yet ingenious claim exhibits a quadruple negative, propounding a lie within a lie within a lie within a lie.