Mitt vs. the Mullahs

By Ben Johnson
FrontPageMagazine.com

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-conspiratorial 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.

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