lost opportunity

I read a short article this morning about Mahmoud Ahmedinijad being denied the opportunity to go to the World Trade Center site and leave a wreath. Evidently once the 'presidential candidates' (that's all the article said, not which ones, or which party) heard about his request, they roundly shouted it down as a 'photo op.' This is a short-sighted mistake that undermines our credibility, robs us of any opportunity to improve our standing in the debate, and makes me realize that no matter who is elected, they will likely fumble the Middle East ball as soon as it's handed to them, exacerbating our standing in that part of the world just as we try to withdraw from Iraq.

I understand the need to deal firmly with Iran and much of the Middle East. Most of the regimes are corrupt, militant, religiously-motivated, dictatorial, and borderline incestuous with their succession of power. But how exactly could his laying of a wreath be co-opted against us? A friend at work made the solid point that people could say he laid the wreath for the 19 hijackers, not their victims, which sure, might be stretched out of it, but a) the hijcakers were Saudi, no friends of the Iranians, and b) couldn't we provide him with a wreath wrapped in a ribbon that plainly says 'For the fallen victims of September 11th'? It's not as if he was just going to stroll into the wreath store and buy himself one.

My friend continued: allowing Ahmedinijad to lay a wreath wouldn't change anything right now - he'd still be a scurrilous jackass trying to build questionable nuclear plants and too willing to shoot off his mouth to please the religious fundamentalists running most of his country, and we'd still be headed by a moronic jackass too quick to see everything in black and white and too ready to manipulate intelligence to please the religious fundamentalists who want to run this country. But it would change our course, just a little. We'd still be traveling down a perilous path, but the possibility that its destination could be a positive one would become a little more likely. That, combined with the affirmation that America stands for the right of even our enemies to speak freely, is worth the possibility that someone will create propaganda for people who hate us anyway.