by Jeffrey Herf

In October 2005 at an "Anti-Zionism" conference in Tehran, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad famously quoted a remark from Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of Iran's Islamic revolution, who said that Israel "must be wiped out from the map of the world." According to Iran's official news agency, Ahmadinejad then said: "And God willing, with the force of God behind it, we shall soon experience a world without the United States and Zionism." As Iran now gives clear evidence of seeking to build a nuclear bomb, the statement has taken on ominous implications. So it was unsettling that one of the bastions of realism in American foreign relations, the Council on Foreign Relations, extended an invitation to Ahmadinejad to discuss the issues of the day. Following the 90 minute session a week ago in New York, Richard N. Haass, the President of the Council offered one of the memorable understatements of 2006: "I'm not sure we learned anything new." Peter Peterson and David Rockefeller told the Iranian president that the majority of Americans were "horrified" by his assertion that the Holocaust was a myth. Martin Indyk noted that Iranian supported terrorists had done all they could to prevent a peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Brent Scowcroft asked why Iran was going ahead with its nuclear enrichment program. Kenneth Roth of Human Rights Watch noted denial of such rights in Iran. Fareed Zakaria asked whether there was a way to restoring the good relations that existed between the United States and Iran. Ahmadinejad, unimpressed by these questions and assertions, repeated the evasions of Holocaust denial, insisted Iran's nuclear program was for peaceful purposes, and told those scolding Iran about human rights to stay out of its domestic politics, which anyway, he insisted, rested on free elections and democracy. Then he delivered a really low low. "Everything you said seems to come from the government perspective," that is, the perspective of the Bush administration. Haass admonished Ahmadinejad that the aim of the session "was to expose you to views of a broad range of Americans. It would be wrong for you to leave this meeting thinking that you heard unrepresentative views." Elie Wiesel and the Israeli Ambassador to the United States sharply criticized the Council for extending the invitation. The New York Times columnist Roger Cohen, writing in the International Herald Tribune, came to Haass's defense. He argued that talking with the Iranian President was an important component of diplomacy, no less so than was speaking to the Soviet leadership during the Cold War. Of the meeting, Cohen wrote that "Ahmadinejad rambled on for almost two hours, giving vent to some odious blather and leaving open the fundamental question: Is he all talk or is his menace for real?" Having just posted a note entitled "What is political sophistication?," I think it appropriate to note that Ahmadinejad's "talk" is already a great menace, one that serves to delegitimate Israel's right to exist. Why would Roger Cohen, or the leaders of the Council on Foreign Relations think Ahmadinejad has not meant what he has said in public? Perhaps they thought that in their presence he would say what he really believes instead of the "odious blather" he has mouthed for the past few years. Well it turned out that the odious blather in public was identical to the odious blather in private. He said nothing to them that had not been reported often in the press and they learned nothing about him which the observant among them did not already knew or should have known. It certainly was no news to him that most Americans believe that the Holocaust is as certain a historical fact as that the Earth is round and that they view Iran as theocratic dictatorship that has lied about its nuclear weapons aspirations. His responses indicated he couldn't care less what the members of the Council on Foreign Relations, or the rest of us for that matter, think about all that. By sitting in the same room with a man who has threatened mass murder--and originally there were plans to actually have dinner with him-the Council on Foreign Relations lent the Iranian president a legitimacy and respectability he does not deserve. In the five decades of the cold war, none of the Soviet leaders threatened to wipe the United States off the map. Even Khrushchev's famous "we will bury you" referred to economic competition. Moreover, Iran has not suffered from lack of diplomatic communication in the past year. Britain, France and Germany have been in constant communication regarding its nuclear programs. The conclusion is hard to avoid that some mix of outdated political sophistication posing as hard headed realism, an inability or refusal to take Ahmadinejad's threats and historical fictions seriously, and perhaps an exaggerated view of the impact of the persuasive powers of the members of the Council on Foreign Relations led to this regrettable invitation. Many years of political engagement lay behind the things Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said in public. While he gained the an aura of legitimacy by simply sitting in the same room with people of great accomplishment and decency, the Council on Foreign Relations reputation for shrewd, astute, worldly-wise judgment about foreign affairs has suffered a severe blow.