"This is in all probability an attempt to secure the Jewish vote and any swing voters who don't feel that Obama is strong enough on national security"

Correct. That is exactly what it is. Political maneuvers to get votes.

*****

Iran (meaning) Ahmadinejad did NOT state an intention to "wipe Israel off the map". That is a complete and probably deliberate misquote of what Ahmadinejad ever said. He never said that. No matter how many times you wishful thinkers say he said, he did not say it. He quoted an old statement of the Ayatollah Kohmeini that the Israeli regime (meaning the present Israeli political regime) would one day (at an undetermined time) "pass from the page of time" (cease to rule that area of land). Uh-huh. An easy thing to say, because ALL political regimes one day pass from the page of time. They pass from the page of time for a tremendous variety of reasons, such as...

economic failure
social change
a major change in policy, resulting in a new type of regime
war
and many other possible causes

No statement was made by either the Ayatollah or Ahmadinejad that the nation of Iran would be the agent of causing that passage from the page of time. No threat was made regarding military action by Iran to make the Israeli political regime pass from the page of time.

What the Ayatollah was saying was simply this, "these guys (Zionists)ain't gonna be around forever". Right. And neither will the Ayatollahs be around forever. They all pass from the page of time one day. Count on it. They do.

The Soviet Union passed from the page of time in 1989. That did not wipe Russia off the map, did it? The Roman Empire passed from the page of time. Italy and its people are still there. The Nazis passed from the page of time. The Germans and Germany are still there. The Shah's government passed from the page of time in 1979. Iran was not wiped off the map. Saddam's Baath regime passed from the page of time in 2003. Iraq has not been wiped off the map. No nation that I know of has been wiped off the map except for some very unfortunate North American Indian tribes (like the Beothuks in Newfoundland).

Ahmandinejad never said that Iran would wipe Israel off the map, and it's been discredited for so long now that he supposedly said that that it is really quite amazing that people will insist on still repeating it as a justification for their fear of Iran. Is a lie a truth once you have repeated it for the 800,000th time? Apparently. I guess it doesn't matter if you simply MUST believe it's true, does it?

He didn't say it.