Ahmadinejad and the Craters of World War IV

So now it’s not enough for Iran’s Bomb-Lover-in-Chief Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to make his third trip in three years to New York to address the UN General Assembly — in preparation for which, his envoy has already rolled out the carpet by presenting Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon with his own portrait woven into — what else –a rug (see photo, below). Now we learn that Ahmadinejad wants to go lay a wreath in the crater where the Twin Towers once stood — Ground Zero.

The New York Sun was all over this story when I dropped by their offices in lower Manhattan this afternoon, and is among those reporting that Ahmedinejad’s plan has been rebuffed. Let’s hope it stays that way. He should not be allowed into this country in the first place — if the UN wants to host him somewhere, a slagheap in his own country would be an appropriate venue for the ceremonies. Given the appalling reality that he is coming to New York — yet again — to allow him anywhere near Ground Zero would dishonor our country, and the Americans who died — some trying to save others –on the clear September day when World War IV brought hell to Manhattan.

We did not seek it, but that’s what we’re fighting — World War IV (I’ve just finished Norman Podhoretz’s fine new book of that title, see Roger Simon’s review). There are long and no doubt important debates to be had over the roles, connections and rivalries between radical Sunnis and radical Shia, between the wahhabis and Hezbollah and Hamas and Osama bin Laden and you-name-it. But in this war, our enemies have this much in common: They despise the free world, and seek to subvert, attack and destroy it.

And in that broad and ugly campaign, which began well before Sept. 11, the Iranian regime that Ahmadinejad will represent next week on the UN stage has played a major part. Iran’s rulers have been bombing, kidnapping, terrorizing and poisoning humanity for almost three decades. If Ahmadinejad wants to visit the craters he and his kind have left, in this war they have made, he could save himself the trans-Atlantic trip and start right there in his own neighborhood. There are the bomb craters of Lebanese politicians murdered when they stood up for a country free of Syrian-Iranian-backed repression and terror. There are the sites in Iraq where people now free of Saddam Hussein and aspiring to a decent life have –with Iranian backing — been blown up or gunned down. There are the places in northern Israel where Iranian-backed Hezbollah in the summer of 2006 landed its barrage of Iranian-supplied munitions… the list is varied and very long. Actually, if Ahmadinejad wants to do some wreath-laying, he doesn’t need to leave home at all. He could start with the graves of Iranians tortured and murdered for defying his own regime.