The Counterterrorism Blog has discovered that the so—called reformist regime in Iran has just reaffirmed the death fatwa against author Salman Rushdie. Moreoverm the Euros, who are interested in maintaining their lucrative trade with Iran, and who pressure the US to be "less confrontational" are twisting themselves into pretzels, trying not to notice.

While it is sad —— but not unexpected —— to see such barbarity issue from Khamenei's lips, it is truly amusing to witness the kind of mental gymnastics some politicos have performed in trying to pretend that there's no real problem here.  For example, the Times of London reports that "senior British officials swiftly made plain last night that the Iranian Government, which had disassociated itself from the fatwa in 1998, had not changed its position.  They pointed out that because the fatwa was issued in February 1989 by Iran's revolutionary founder and Khamenei's predecessor, Ayatollah Khomeini, who had since died, it would always remain in existence."  Er, well, I guess that's okay then.

One senior British official stated, "Almost every time that the current supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, gives a sermon he mentions Salman Rushdie in these terms and denounces him as a man who has insulted the name of the Prophet and who can therefore be killed.  It's just the standard rhetoric."  And rhetoric threatening people with death for blaspheming Islam is completely harmless, of course.

The only remaining question is why anyone pays any attention to moral suasion from Europeans, who gace us Nazism, Communism, and the Holocaust, but who now lecture us on morality.

Ed Lasky and Thomas Lifson  1 20 05