An Islamic terrorist expert says he thinks it's ridiculous that the U.S. State Department has allowed Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to come to the United States to address the United Nations.
Robert Spencer is director of Jihad Watch, a project of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, as well as a specialist in the area of Islamic terrorism. He thinks Ahmadinejad has made some extremely provocative statements regarding his desire to wipe Israel off the map, remarks that lead Spencer to regard the Iranian official as a modern version of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.
It is appalling, Spencer asserts, that someone like Ahmadinejad should be granted a visa and allowed to enter the United States. And it is particularly appalling, the terrorism expert says, "in light of his manifestly genocidal statements about Israel, which should put him beyond the pale of acceptable discourse to the United Nations."
The specter of an Adolf Hitler addressing the United Nations would be laughable, Spencer says, except that this is exactly what the U.S. is facing in Ahmadinejad's U.N. appearance. After all, the Islamic terrorism expert notes, questions have been raised about the Iranian leader's possible involvement in the 1979 terrorist seizing of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.
Ahmadinejad has been positively identified by some of the hostages who were taken in that Embassy attack, Spencer points out. "Now, others of the hostages say it wasn't him," he admits, "but even the fact that the question has been raised by credible people ought to be enough to get him at least to answer some serious questions, to provide some evidence that he was not involved, if he really wasn't."
But rather than treat Ahmadinejad with the caution he merits, the Jihad Watch spokesman says the United Nations is welcoming him. Spencer says he is appalled that a man "who has been linked to targeted assassinations of opponents of the Iranian regime" is being allowed to speak to the General Assembly following President Bush's U.N. address today.
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