Fox News reports:
President Obama could be hanging his hopes for productive nuclear negotiations with Iran on a hoax, according to one Middle East-focused think tank.
On Friday, Obama cited a “fatwa,” or religious edict, from Iran’s all-powerful Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, banning the pursuit of nuclear weapons.
“I do believe that there is a basis for a resolution [because] Iran’s Supreme Leader has issued a fatwa against the development of nuclear weapons,” Obama told reporters.
But although talk of such a fatwa has been around for at least eight years, there’s no evidence it was ever issued, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute, which flatly called the fatwa a hoax. MEMRI claims the phony fatwa is promoted by Iranian diplomats and Turkey’s Islamist prime minister, Recep Erdogan.
The supposed fatwa does not appear on a website of Khamenei’s fatwas maintained by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, and Khamenei didn’t mention it when asked a direct question.
Did Obama even bother to check before spouting this? (And would it be better if he did, or if he didn’t?) Too bad he’s not so feckless in his dealing with his domestic adversaries; he has identified his real enemy, and it’s not Iran.
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