Mitt vs. the Mullahs

NEXT WEEK, MITT ROMNEY WILL DO WHAT THE STATE DEPARTMENT should have done months ago: declare former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami persona non grata on American soil.

Romney has stated he will not expend Bay State resources to safeguard the pseudo-�reformer� as he addresses Harvard on September 10th�and 11th.�State taxpayers should not be providing special treatment to an individual who supports violent jihad and the destruction of Israel,� Romney affirms. He calls the speech �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,� noting it will consist of �propaganda, pure and simple.�

The speech certainly has an element of the fantastic about it. The former president of a repressive Islamic theocracy will address the John F. Kennedy School of Government on the Orwellian theme, the �Ethics of Tolerance in the Age of Violence.�

That Khatami will speak at Harvard is nearly as predictable as his earlier public speaking engagement � the Islamic Society of North America�s 43rd annual convention in Chicago, at which he accused the United States of implementing �policies that cause the intensification of terrorism and institutionalized violence.� Some have found parallels between Khatami�s fevered anti-Semitic ramblings and the conclusions of JFK School Dean Stephen Walt, who co-wrote the quasi-conspiratoria l article, �The Israel Lobby.� The glowing biography on the Harvard website refers to the education of �His Excellence Mr. Khatami� in the �holy city of Qom� and his governmental service during the �Iraqi imposed war.� It must only sting Harvard�s ego that a Taliban representative had already been taken.

The intolerance and violence Khatami personally enacted should have deprived him of a visa to enter this country. The mullahs� frontman from August 1997-August 2005, Khatami presided over the world�s number one state sponsor of terrorism. As Ken Timmerman noted last week, he played a role in �the creation of Hezbollah.� Financing the terrorist organization through his presidency, he renewed his praise as recently as July, during the Hezbollah-Israeli war, at which time he gushed, �Hezbollah is like a shining sun that illuminates and warms the hearts of all Muslims and supporters of freedom in the world.� As president, he also refused to turn over the agents responsible for the Khobar Towers bombing and accelerated Tehran�s covert nuclear program.