Ahmadinejad’s Art of Mockery

Once again, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad succeeded in making a mockery out of our media and foreign policy establishments. They just simply fell into his trap. All he needed to do was dole out “exclusive interview” privileges, and the media went gaga over him. As to how exclusive an interview is if it is done with every major media outlet in the country – ABC, NBC, Fox News, I do not know. Even Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal seemed smitten by Ahmadinejad’s cunning and guile during a breakfast meeting with journalists to the point that he even thought the Iranian leader was the smartest guy in the room (I hope he was just being sarcastic).

The foreign policy establishment didn’t do any better, either. Hoping that by welcoming him they could talk him into agreeing to stop Iran’s nuclear enrichment program, they accorded him diplomatic hospitality. The United Nations hosted him once again, providing him with a forum with which he launched his vitriol attacks against the enemies of his country. His latest pronouncement -- that the 9/11 attack was US-orchestrated -- is even more outrageous than the previous ones, prompting President Obama to issue a statement, calling the remark “inexcusable” and out-of-step with the Iranian people:” "’It was offensive. It was hateful. And particularly for him to make the statement here in Manhattan, just a little north of Ground Zero, where families lost their loved ones, people of all faiths, all ethnicities who see this as the seminal tragedy of this generation, for him to make a statement like that was inexcusable,’ Mr. Obama told BBC Persia, according to a transcript provided by the White House.”

So why do the UN, the State Department, and the media talk to this guy? Why do they take him seriously, dignify his existence, and provide forums for his irrational discourses? From the moment he issued a statement denying the Holocaust , that should have provided the international community, and, everyone for that matter, a clue that this guy should be ignored and marginalized.

If the right solution to the Iran problem is regime change, the best way to begin is for the outside world to view this man as a joke. As it is, the way we give in to his publicity-seeking stunts, the joke is on us, really. He is mocking us, and we refuse to see it.