Ahmadinejad Prepares To Steal the Scene

Billed as a dialogue between American church leaders and President Ahmadinejad of Iran, the Religions for Peace event at the Grand Hyatt Hotel on Thursday is shaping up as the focal point of this week's gathering of world leaders in New York City.

Mr. Ahmadinejad, who has learned in recent years how to steal the show during a visit to the city, is scheduled to deliver a speech at the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday and hold a press conference at Turtle Bay later this week. But gems like his denial last year, at Columbia University, that a gay community exists in his country are most likely to emerge from Thursday's religious meeting, which will be held during an iftar, the traditional meal served during Ramadan to break the fast.

Top U.N. officials are scrambling to figure out how to stop the president of the General Assembly, Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, from dining with and honoring Mr. Ahmadinejad, who has violated an assembly resolution against denying the Holocaust and broken one of the cardinal rules of the U.N. Charter by calling for the elimination of a member state, Israel. Secretary-General Ban has no jurisdiction over Mr. d'Escoto, a former Sandinista bigwig who was promoted to the top elective office at Turtle Bay by fellow Latin Americans.

Fearing further embarrassment, some diplomats at the United Nations are running to the rulebooks, looking to see if Mr. d'Escoto, a former foreign minister in the Sandinista government whose flame-throwing rhetoric almost matches that of Mr. Ahmadinejad, can be impeached before his one-year tenure is over.

When I asked Mr. d'Escoto last week if his "having a dialogue" with Mr. Ahmadinejad meant he was endorsing the Iranian leader's call for the destruction of Israel, he told me: "I don't want anyone to be wiped off the map, not even any individual, much less a state." Neither do the organizers of the religious event.

The secretary-general of Religions for Peace, William Vendley, told the group's members in a letter on Friday that the organization opposes Holocaust denial, wants peace and justice for both Israelis and Arabs, rejects terrorism, and opposes nuclear proliferation. Along with the World Council of Churches, as well as Mennonite and Quaker leaders, Mr. Vendley is seeking "an opportunity for participants to express their deeply held concerns in a direct and face-to-face manner," he wrote. Then he cited a call by five former American secretaries of state to "talk to Iran" as backup for his group's brand of dialogue.

Those former officials have endorsed conducting diplomacy with Tehran, not talking to Iran. And yes, despite reports to the contrary, the current administration is conducting diplomacy with Iran. But that is not the same thing as giving Mr. Ahmadinejad an air of respectability by hosting and toasting him in New York. As one of the five former officials mentioned in Mr. Vendley's letter, Henry Kissinger, explained to CNN last year: "I do not oppose his speaking. I oppose its sponsorship by Columbia University."

Universities and religion institutes say they want to promote peace. But as a former American ambassador to the United Nations, Mark Wallace, says, "There is nothing peaceful about an Iranian regime that calls for the extermination of Israel, denies the Holocaust, and calls for Death to America in weekly street rallies."

Mr. Wallace is president of a bipartisan group, United Against Nuclear Iran, which includes such McCain supporters as James Woolsey and Karen Hughes, and Obama boosters such as Richard Holbrooke and Dennis Ross. Despite the fight between Senator Clinton and Governor Palin over today's anti-Ahmadinejad rally, and although politicians differ about degrees of engagement with the mullahs in Tehran, the aversion to Mr. Ahmadinejad crosses party lines.

Mainstream religious leaders are also cautious. So far no American Jewish leader has announced that he or she will participate in the Religions for Peace event. The Vatican's U.N. nuncio politely turned down his invitation, saying he was otherwise engaged.

The Bush administration wants the event scrapped altogether. "We are concerned that your 'dialogue' will be merely another platform for President Ahmadinejad to espouse an ideology of intolerance," the chairwoman of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, Felice Gaer, wrote to the organizers. Iran, she noted, has violated religious freedom by jailing Baha'is and Christians and enacting a new penal code that punishes "apostasy" by death.

For Mr. Ban, the balancing act is a bit more delicate. He could allow the General Assembly president to tip Turtle Bay further toward anti-Americanism and Mr. Ahmadinejad's allies, but even a most sympathetic next American president would find it hard to go to bat for the United Nations if it is dominated by the likes of Mr. Ahmadinejad and Mr. d'Escoto.

bavni@nysun.com