An Unholy Alliance Denied By Mark D. Tooley

A budding courtship between Iran’s theocracy and the American Religious Left hit a speed bump on September 7 when the U.S. State Department denied visas to a “religious delegation” from Iran that was to meet here with U.S. clerics.

The romance began last Fall when eager U.S. church officials met with and were enchanted by Iran’s chief theocrat, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, while he was in New York. The kisses continued when, at Ahmadinejad’s gracious invitation, the U.S. prelates visited Iran in February, where they were assured by the Iranian president and other officials of the Shiite police state that Islam disapproves of nuclear weapons.

But the consummation of this romance apparently has been delayed by the U.S. State Department’s very non-romantic intransigence. Visas for 4 of the 14 Iranian clerics were denied, including the group’s two leaders, which seems to have led to the assignation’s cancellation.

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