Echoing Jimmy Carter's penchant for doing the wrong thing and backing the wrong side.

*****We have clear indication that the administration is backing the "wrong side" in Honduras, opting to oppose constitutional government in favor of a Chavez-like potential dictatorship. In Iran, the folly of hewing to an unthinking posture of "engagement" has veered into total immorality, as well as impracticality insofar as the security of the U.S. and the Western world is concerned.Perhaps it's just a partiality for the morality of Islam.****
Engaged to Be ‘Married’ from Jas Taranto, WSJ
The Jerusalem Post has an interview with a member of the Basij, the teen militia that enforces the Iranian regime’s will. Even with what we knew about the Basij’s brutality, this is shocking:>He said he had been a highly regarded member of the force, and had so “impressed my superiors” that, at 18, “I was given the ‘honor’ to temporarily marry young girls before they were sentenced to death.” >In the Islamic Republic it is illegal to execute a young woman, regardless of her crime, if she is a virgin, he explained. Therefore a “wedding” ceremony is conducted the night before the execution: The young girl is forced to have sexual intercourse with a prison guard--essentially raped by her “husband.” >“I regret that, even though the marriages were legal,” he said. >Why the regret, if the marriages were “legal?” >”Because,” he went on, “I could tell that the girls were more afraid of their ‘wedding’ night than of the execution that awaited them in the morning. And they would always fight back, so we would have to put sleeping pills in their food. By morning the girls would have an empty expression; it seemed like they were ready or wanted to die.>”I remember hearing them cry and scream after [the rape] was over,” he said. “I will never forget how this one girl clawed at her own face and neck with her finger nails afterwards. She had deep scratches all over her.”
When President Obama asks the Iranian regime for “engagement,” does he understand its concept of “marriage”?
Meanwhile, the New York Times, reports from Beirut, with the help of “independent observers from Tehran,” on a speech by Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Rafsanjani held the position of president from 1989 until 1997 and is chairman of the Assembly of Experts, so he is a creature of the regime. But in his speech, the Times reports, he “assailed the government’s handling of the post-election unrest, saying it had lost the trust of many Iranians, and called for the release of hundreds of those arrested in recent weeks.” The crowd, however, went much further:>As the speech ended and traditional calls to chant “Death to America” came over the loudspeaker, many in the crowd instead chanted “Death to Russia.” Many opposition supporters are angry about Russia’s quick acceptance of [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad’s election victory.
Let’s hope Obama, in trying to make nice with the Tehran regime, doesn’t squander the goodwill America obviously has built up with the Iranian people.