Khamenei Praises President Obama

Iran’s state media reported on Thursday that the country’s top leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warmly praised U.S. President Barack Obama for saying that diplomacy, and not war, can resolve the dispute over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.

Khamenei said, “These words are good words and an exit from delusion.” The Associated Press noted that the accolade from the ayatollah was “one of the rare cases in which Iran’s top leader praised an American leader.”

The irony is stark, since the Islamic Republic’s mullahs are violently anti-West. In fact, Khamenei and other top Iranian leaders regular refer to the United States as the “Great Satan.”

President Obama has taken the Iranian crisis as an opportunity to paint his critics as war mongers. As a direct result, the president is giving Iran the ingredient it needs most to finish its first nuclear weapons: time.

In fact, Khamenei’s praise for Obama included a recognition that his anti-war stance has given Iran a “window of opportunity.”

Praise from one of America’s worst enemies indicates that there are deep vulnerabilities in America’s foreign policy. It also indicates that the very highest levels of America’s executive leadership are dangerously weak. At the opposite end of the spectrum, Khamenei’s foreign policy is becoming so bold that Khamenei can not only make such remarks, but make them in public.

When Iran obtains nuclear weapons and becomes a terrifying Islamist regional power, many will look back on these recent events as one of the milestones along the march toward a nuclear world crisis.