The Pope's Crusade

After a meeting between Pope Benedict XVI and the Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, the Pope was at pains to stress that the Holy See "not as a political authority but as a religious and moral one" and did not comment on the undoubtedly unconstitutional resolution passed by the UN Security council, which was drafted by three ostensibly Christian countries (Britain, France and German) and driven by another ostensibly Christian country (the United States). The pontiff could have but did not condemn Christian violence and occupation in Muslim countries; he could have but did not denounce Christian belligerence towards Iran and Syria. Instead he chooses today - Eid al-Ghadir - to engage in politics and rebuke Iran.

The Pontiff suggested that trust in the region will also improve if, "a country like Iran, especially in relation to its nuclear program, agrees to give a satisfactory response to the legitimate concerns of the international community," despite the fact that the resolution has no legal basis in international law and not a scintilla of evidence has ever been produced that Iran has a nuclear weapons programme.

This is self-evidently not an apolitical statement and will no doubt be referred to by those who wish see a genocidal Crusade against Iran next. If he is suggesting that the "international community" (the 15 countries that sat on the UNSC as opposed to the majority of the nations of the World) have legitimate concerns about Iran nuclear programme, he is implicitly legitimising any response by the "international community" if Iran fails alleviate these concerns, which of course it will since they are bogus.

He also suggested that such action on Iran's behalf "would surely help to stabilize the whole region, especially Iraq, putting an end to the appalling violence which disfigures that country with bloodshed."

Iran would surely have preferred that he had just offered his felicitations; perhaps expressed a modicum of gratitude for Iran's stabilising role in Iraq; and a mite of regret for the chaos caused by the Christian Occupiers. The linkage between the Iranian nuclear issue and the stability of Iraq is quite alarming: the obvious implication is that those opposed to the Iranian nuclear programme are destabilising Iraq. Hence he is suggesting the Occupiers and their allies in the region are opposing the Iraqi Shia at least partly due to their concerns over the Iranian nuclear programme - which is complete nonsense - yet even if it were true, he is not suggesting that those destabilising Iraq should desist; he is suggesting that Iran should give a "satisfactory response".