The pope, the Iranian president, and the naked truth
Last week, Pope Francis met with Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani; this was the first meeting between a pope and an Iranian leader since 1999.
So why now? Well, because of the P5+1 Iranian nuclear deal, of course. See, naïve and not well-intentioned countries made this agreement with the world’s biggest state sponsor of terrorism and now the Iranians are big shots. Such big shots that even the pope became part of the act.
Never mind that all the greedy, I mean trusting, among the negotiating countries admit that Iran still foments terror in many places around the world, never mind Iran been responsible for the deaths of so many including Westerners such as Americans, never mind they or their proxies continue to make war in different parts of the globe creating havoc and destabilization for host and neighboring countries, and never mind the Iranians already violated said agreement by test firing long range missiles.
I could keep “never minding,” but never mind. You get the drift.
The pariah of nations – and that’s saying a lot considering how many nations on this shaky planet do nasty things – is now a world player in civilized courts. Iran’s president can now yuk it up with other presidents much as Iran’s foreign minister yukked it up with the P5+1 representatives after the agreement was made.
So Rouhani is now the traveling salesman for a country newly flush in riches hoping and wanting much more so that it can, what? Build hospitals and schools? Some, I am sure; they will make good photo ops to keep the gullible ones happy.
I can see it now. Headline: Iran to build three new community facilities. Story: Iran will be using some formerly sanctioned funds to build a school, a hospital and a university. To be named, Death to America Elementary School, Death to Israel Hospital, and Kill Everybody Else University…
And the world will applaud. “See how the wonderful Iranians are now helping their own? What’s that? They sent more support to Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad? They gave more weapons and training to the Taliban fighting the US in Afghanistan? To the butcher Assad in Syria to kill many thousands more? To there and to them, and there and them, ad infinitum? And they violated the agreement yet again? OK, but look at the beautiful drawings of the elementary school. Such brilliant architecture!”
I guess all this makes sense in a world increasingly allowed to go mad. Money is what makes the world go round after all, not decency or common sense. The blood, I mean the ink, of the nuclear agreement is barely dry and Rouhani is now touring Europe like a conquering hero. Because he is. He conquered Europe, and the US and the UN and others.
Russia and China, Germany, France and Italy, etc. Weapons (of course), cars, airplanes, metals, pharmaceuticals, oil. Peugeots and Airbuses and more. “I’ll take some of those, and a bunch of those, and I’ll trade you for those…”
Blood money, the common currency of the EU and the other enabling capitulators, now flows freely between the “enlightened” world and the country whose terrorist reach has killed hundreds of thousands, who discriminates against women, gays, Christians and other non-Shiites, jails and tortures journalists and human rights activists, and reportedly executes the most people per capita than any other country in the world – death sentences being handed down by Islamic Kangaroo courts, even as the “moderate” Rouhani triumphantly goes on a capital by capital shopping spree.
When I heard that one of the world’s foremost moral authorities, Pope Francis, met with Rouhani as well, it didn’t surprise me at all. I know there were those disturbed by the meeting, but face it, this is what popes do. Pope John Paul II met with Yasser Arafat, several times, and even before the Oslo Accords granted that godfather of terrorism legitimacy.
But did the meeting have more to do with the pope’s being able to express concern about Iran’s persecution of Christians, or with making the Italian government happy as it pushes trade deals worth billions? If it’s the latter, which many suspect, how incredibly sad. So very sad.
By the way, to make sure the Iranian leader would not be uncomfortable during his visit to the Capitoline Museums in Rome – see, the conquering hero gets to be a tourist as well, ancient Roman statues were covered up by large boxes, heaven forbid the poor president would have his righteous sensitivities become fragile as he made the rounds.
“And under this box, your Excellency, is the statue of Capitoline Venus, dating back to the fourth century B.C.” “Lovely, absolutely lovely, Mr. Curator.” (“Now where is my sledgehammer?”)
The boxed ancient statues of Rome are the perfect metaphor for yet another pathetic and cowardly European display. As the truth was covered up, the hypocrisy was once again laid bare.