One of the aggravations of the annual opening of the U.N. General Assembly is it is attended by Iranian dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a man guilty of fostering terrorism abroad and oppression at home.
Because of the rules of diplomacy, instead of being arrested when he gets off the plane at Kennedy Airport, Ahmadinejad has been whisked to the Warwick behind a rather savage looking security detail to live it up before addressing the General Assembly. Last year he offered some 9/11 trutherism. Who knows what is in store for this year.
Real Clear World wonders, with Ahmadinejad’s record going back to the Iranian hostage crisis and including training of Syrian snipers to kill peaceful protesters, why the Iranian tyrant is not at least on a no-fly list. Pajamas Media goes even further: Why not kidnap him?
This presumes the United States would not invoke the principle of Universal Jurisdiction the British used to place Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet under house arrest, even though he was in Britain under a diplomatic passport. If the Bush administration declined to be so bold, then certainly the Obama administration will shrink from that. In any case, this would spark calls to arrest Americans, including Bush and Obama, under the same principle.
The Pajamas Media idea appears to involve snatching Ahmadinejad as part of a covert operation and spiriting him away to some safe house for an uncomfortable spell of interrogation. Getting someone out of a New York hotel who is surrounded by heavily armed men would seem to be a daunting task, but repeated viewers of movies and TV shows like “Burn Notice” assures us it is doable.
Pajamas Media wants to eschew waterboarding in favor of forcing Ahmadinejad to watch “Schindler’s List” and “Don’t Mess with the Zohan.” I would add “300” simply because the depiction of King Xerxes as a 9 foot, painted, pierced monster would drive him around the bend and get him to confess everything.
Then the question arises, what to do with him? Trying Ahmadinejad before a military tribunal would be tricky and a regular trial would be impossible. Perhaps all that would be necessary would be to put his confession on the Internet, fill him with alcohol, and then drop him off at the nearest Iranian embassy, the one in Canada perhaps, and pretend that nothing happened. The firestorm that would follow would be entertaining to be sure.
Source: Ahmadinejad Utters 9/11 Truther Nonsense at the UN General Assembly, Mark R. Whittington, Associated Content, Sept 24, 2010
Why Isn’t Ahmadinejad on a No-Fly List? Mark Dubowitz, Real Clear World, Sept 21, 2011
Should We Kidnap Ahmadinejad? Roger Simon, Pajamas Media, Sept, 21, 2011