So now Barack Obama has spoken by phone to Hassan Rouhani — the first American president to speak to a leader of Iran in decades. And Rouhani has called the United States “great.”
Forgive us our lack of enthusiasm for Iranian leaders bearing praise. We suspect it may turn out the way his so-called admission of the Holocaust did. According to the Iranian news agency, Rouhani didn’t even use the word “Holocaust” in his remarks to the UN General Assembly this week, and the claim he did is based on a CNN mistranslation.
Now, Rouhani certainly sounds like an improvement over his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a Holocaust-denial enthusiast. But as his UN address showed, the difference between Iranian extremists and Iranian moderates is more about tone than substance.
Therein lies the danger. While Rouhani may not declare that Iran is going to destroy Israel, nothing in his message suggests Tehran has changed its mind on that front. Unfortunately, the new tone seems to be providing enough cover for the diplomatic engagement President Obama so desperately wants — which the Iranians will no doubt use to buy time to develop and build nuclear warheads.
Which brings us back to the real issue. Whether the president of Iran recognizes the historical fact of the Holocaust is not the question. The question is whether the United States will allow Iran to develop the capacity to launch a new Holocaust with nuclear weapons capable of striking Israel.