UN chief’s trip to Iran is a boost for terrorism

UN Secretary General Ban Ki- m oon made the fateful announcement Wednesday: He will attend the summit of nonaligned nations in Tehran — handing a massive propaganda victory to the belligerent, anti-Semitic regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

What is Ban thinking? Or let’s put it another way: Is Ban thinking at all?

Just five days ago, he mildly rebuked Iran’s leaders for engaging in what Ban called “offensive and inflammatory” rhetoric. Actually, Ahmadinejad and Khamenei had gone on a death-to-Israel tear.

“The Zionist regime and the Zionists are a cancerous tumor,” Ahmadinejad declared, adding:

“The nations of the region will soon finish off the usurper Zionists in the Palestinian land. . . . A new Middle East will definitely be formed. With the grace of God and help of the nations, in the new Middle East there will be no trace of the Americans and Zionists.”

The U.S. and Israel had pleaded with Ban to skip the diplo-meetings as a statement that Iran is at present a nation non grata and to prevent Ahmadinejad from exploiting Ban’s prestige.

No such sanity emerged from a world leader who had previously shown good sense while surrounded by the UN’s blackguards. At the worst moment, Ban is giving Ahmadinejad a stunning public relations coup with a gesture that he can trumpet as an imprimatur of respectability.

In defiance of United Nations strictures, Iran is pushing development of a nuclear weapons program — and bringing the world ever closer to military action by America and/or Israel.

While openly calling for Israel’s destruction, Iran is also waging a global terror campaign against Israeli civilians and exporting terror through Hezbollah and Hamas.

Led by the U.S. and Europe, enough of the world has joined a regime of sanctions that has begun to weaken Iran’s economy. The goal is complete isolation — not that you would know it from from Ban’s presence at the nonaligned confab.

Horrifyingly, Ban’s office announced his intention to attend as the Security Council took up a UN report on Iranian complicity in Syrian President Bashar Assad’s slaughter of his own people.

The secretary general appears to believe that he has a duty to make an appearance because the proceedings will address concerns of 120 member nations, most from the Third World. He’s wrong on that score, nor does it inspire confidence that Ban’s office says he expects to talk sternly to Ahmadinejad about Iran’s national responsibilities.

Ahmadinejad couldn’t give a damn, and nothing Ban says will trump Iranian crowing over his inexcusable participation.

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