Trust

Former Iranian "President" Mohammad Khatami, in the midst of his whirlwind tour enemy territory (i.e. the United States), the first for an Iranian poobah since the Islamist regime committed its first act of war against us twenty-seven years ago - was quoted by CNN (natch) as saying the following yesterday:

"Why should they not trust Iran?" CNN quoted him as saying. "See, at this moment, Iran is a signatory to the treaty, has declared many times it has no interest in building the nuclear bomb."

Why should we not trust Iran? Let's turn that around - why should we trust Mohammad Khatami? Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney doesn't, and with good reason:

Governor Mitt Romney today ordered all Massachusetts state government agencies to decline support, if asked, for former Iranian President Mohammed Khatami’s September 10 visit to the Boston area, where he is scheduled to speak at Harvard University.

“State taxpayers should not be providing special treatment to an individual who supports violent jihad and the destruction of Israel,” said Romney.

Romney’s action means that Khatami will be denied an official police escort and other VIP treatment when he is in town. The federal government provides security through the U.S. State Department.

Romney criticized Harvard for honoring Khatami by inviting him to speak, calling it “a disgrace to the memory of all Americans who have lost their lives at the hands of extremists, especially on the eve of the five-year anniversary of 9/11.”

Said Romney: “The U.S. State Department listed Khatami’s Iran as the number one state sponsor of terrorism. Within his own country, Khatami oversaw the torture and murder of dissidents who spoke out for freedom and democracy. For him to lecture Americans about tolerance and violence is propaganda, pure and simple.”

Romney cited a litany of hateful actions by Khatami, including his support for violent jihadist activities:

During the period of time he was in office, from 1997 to 2005, Khatami presided over Iran’s secret nuclear program. Currently, the Iranian government under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is snubbing the international community’s request to cease nuclear weapons production.

In the recent conflict along the Israel-Lebanon border, Khatami described the terrorist group Hezbollah as a “shining sun that illuminates and warms the hearts of all Muslims and supporters of freedom in the world.”

Khatami has endorsed Ahmadinejad’s call for the annihilation of Israel.

During Khatami’s presidency, Iran refused to hand over the Iranian intelligence officials who were responsible for the attack on the Khobar Towers that killed nineteen U.S. military personnel.

In his own country, Khatami oversaw the torture and murder of Iranian students, journalists, and others who spoke out for freedom and democracy. Khatami relaxed freedom of speech laws giving democracy reformers a false sense of security only to engage in one of the largest crackdowns in the country’s history.

In Khatami’s Iran, there was no religious tolerance. According to the U.S. Office of International Religious Freedom, Iran was one of the worst offenders of religious persecutions. Minorities, such as Evangelicals, Jews, Catholics and others, have suffered.

“Khatami pretends to be a moderate, but he is not. My hope is that the United States will find and work with real voices of moderation inside Iran. But we will never make progress in the region if we deal with wolves in sheep’s clothing,” said Romney.

An Iranian "moderate" is a jihadist with the barest modicum of discretion. That's why they sent Khatami over here. Forget Adolph Ahmadinejad and his ludicrous "offer" to "debate" (berate is more like it) President Bush at the UN (talk about home court advantage - and I don't mean Bush). That the latter is the mullahgarchy's faceman now is proof-positive that they don't see the need for any discretion at all regarding their imperialistic ambitions in the Middle East and hostile intentions toward Israel and the West. The former is here to sell it - not to American elites, which are already thoroughly dhimmized, but to the American public at large.

Or at least the ruling GOP, also an open door to Khatami's lobbying. It was George Bush's State Department that invited him on this propaganda junket and issued his visa, after all. Neither the Administration nor the "most hawkish" Republicans in Congress are willing to even consider military action to disarm Tehran when economic sanctions - which, even if the Russians and ChiComms would stop blocking them, would have as much impact on the mullahs as they did on Saddam Hussein, to wit, none whatsoever - fail to "persuade" them to abandon their nuclear ambitions. And the idea of encouraging a popular uprising against the mullahs - a viable option several years ago before they possessed nukes, a pipedream now - grows more ridiculously implausible with each passing crackdown.

And yet President Bush continues to vow that he will "not allow" Iran to "develop" nuclear weapons. Which, semantically, means that the few they already have, procured from North Korea and, indirectly, Russia, are just hunky-dory.

Dubya's cognitive dissonance on this greatest national security threat since the end of the Cold War is dizzying and deafening. He demands the ends yet denies the means. When we could perhaps have brought about the overthrow of the mullahgarchy, his Administration ignored the strategy entirely. Now, when the window of opportunity for pre-emptive military action is closing, if not already closed, he disavows that option as well - which happens to be the only option left other than sitting back and letting Iran go nuclear, which would plunge the world into an unimaginable conflagration.

We can trust the mullahgarchy, alright - to continue to grind the Iranian people under their heel, to continue to wage terrorist war against us, and to continue to develop a nuclear arsenal. And once they have enough warheads and the missiles to deliver them, to use them against Israel and the West. And George Bush, whatever his bold declarations to the contrary, will let them do so because he refuses to make the case for the only action that has a chance of preventing it: Operation Iranian Freedom.

This is not averting war; Iran has been at war with us for the past quarter-century. Rather, it is guaranteeing that it will escalate to an endgame at the time, place, and mode of Tehran's choosing.

We're in the 21st century version of the sitzkrieg. And like the first one sixty-seven years ago, this one will end with a bang.

Trust me.