Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are locked in a fierce competition to see who can be the most completely ridiculous Middle-East leader.

Although corporate media outlets have been careful to give a “fair and balanced” accounting of the engagement, it’s clear that both are pulling no punches in their quest to be the most totally fucking nuts.

Both leaders have a history of madness. Speaking about Palestinian territory brutally occupied by Israel, Netanyahu argued that “we cannot allow the establishment of a Palestinian state in our country” — even though the rest of the world, including the U.S. (Israel’s staunch ally), did not consider Gaza and the West Bank to be part of Israel.¹

For his part, Ahmadinejad implemented separate elevators for men and women while mayor of Tehran.²

Now both men are turning up the heat.

Ahmadinejad, who recently called the holocaust a “myth,” has now banned Western music in Iran.

And Netanyahu — poised to once again head Israel’s neoconservative Likud party — has placed himself to the political right of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, a former Defense Minister convicted for his primary role in the massacre of thousands of Palestinian civilians.³

A panel of crazy judges recently selected Netanyahu and Ahmadinejad over runners-up Sharon and Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al-Saud. A final winner is to be determined shortly.