Ayatollah Pot, I believe you’ve met Ayatollah Kettle. This summit in Tehran has done a fine job of demonstrating yet again how uselessly vague the term “terrorism” is. It is the name of a tactic anyone can accuse anyone of using — not so with jihad. And so it plays directly into the hands of Khamenei and kindred spirits to leave the discussion of jihad off the table.
Note also who takes the podium at this “counter-terrorism” conference: Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for genocide. That about says it all.
“Iran slams U.S. at conference on fighting terrorism,” by Ramin Mostaghim and Alexandra Sandels for the Los Angeles Times, June 26:
A battered Peugeot sedan greeted visitors Saturday to a conference hall in north Tehran.
“Professor Massoud Ali Mohammadi, martyred in front of his house,” explained an accompanying poster. It was a reference to the mysterious assassination last year of the Iranian physicist, killed when a bomb exploded near his car in Tehran. Iranian authorities have blamed the West for the killing.
The Peugeot was the symbolic scene-setter for a two-day conference in the Iranian capital on fighting terrorism. According to the Iranian media, officials from more than 60 countries and several heads of state flew in for the talks “” among them Sudanese President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court on war crimes charges.
The event was heavy on U.S.-bashing, generally reflecting Tehran’s views about Washington’s policy in the region.
In a message to the conference, Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei lashed out at the U.S. for drone strikes in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The attacks, he said, have “repeatedly” turned “wedding parties into mourning ceremonies.” He echoed the official Iranian line that the U.S. and its allies are hypocrites, employing terrorist tactics that kill civilians while condemning others as terrorists.
“The United States, Britain and some Western governments, with a black record in terrorist behavior, have now added to their rhetoric the claim of fighting terrorism,” Khamenei was quoted as saying by the semiofficial Fars News Agency. […]
Sudanese President Bashir made a quick appearance at the podium, slamming Israel and the United States for “supporting terrorism,” before jetting off on a trip to China, according to a journalist in his entourage.