• Washington Post: In an article focused on President Barack Obama’s address to the UN, Scott Wilson leads with  Obama’s reaction to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s insinuation that the U.S. government played a role in the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. Obama told BBC Persian, which broadcasts into Iran, Ahmadinejad’s remarks were “offensive”, “hateful” and unacceptable:  ”Particularly for him to make the statement here in Manhattan, just a little north of Ground Zero, where families lost their loved ones, people of all faiths, all ethnicities who see this as the seminal tragedy of this generation, for him to make a statement like that was inexcusable.”

• Huffington Post: In a Q&A with Shaun Jacob Halper, leading non-proliferation expert Mark Fitzpatrick says he is convinced that Iran wants a nuclear weapons “capability” if not the weapons themselves. Fitzpatrick answers questions on whether there is a legal and moral double standard applied to the nuclear programs of Israel and Iran (legally, says Fitzpatrick, Israel is not party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, but morally the answer is more murky); grades Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel on how they deal with Iran (both A’s); and on the viability of a sanctions regime and negotiations. While Iran does not have an “apocalyptic worldview” and is not “irrational,”  he’s not sure if the Iranians are “appeasable” if the desire for “a nuclear weapons capability [is] more than anything else.” He concludes, “And if so than no, they are not appeasable.”

• National Review Online: Anne Bayefsky, a senior fellow at the neoconservative Hudson Institute, compares the speeches of Ahmadinejad and Obama at the UN General Assembly. She writes Obama extended his hand for diplomacy with Iran and used his speech to corner Israel. “Ahmadinejad got the message,” she contends, adding that “Israel is vulnerable with President Obama in office, and Iran has no serious reason to believe that hate and terror will be on the losing end any time soon.” She said the speeches demonstrate that Obama “does not understand the threat facing America and the world from Iran,” and that “Ahmadinejad, therefore, took the opportunity provided by the U.N. to slam the door once more in President Obama’s face.”

• Commentary:  Jennifer Rubin contrasts President Obama’s UN speech, which she labels “namby-pamby” for its failure to detail military options, with the current push by the far-right Christians United for Israel (CUFI) and a group of House Republicans to escalate measures — including a military strike — against Iran. CUFI’s video accuses Ahmadinejad of committing “incitement to genocide” and urges his prosecution by the International Criminal Court. (Eli has written about the hypocrisy of this tack from right-wing supporters of Israel.) The letter from Republican members of the House calls for Obama to “take whatever action is necessary to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. All options must be on the table.” Rubin laments that Obama is not taking Iran’s threats seriously and that should Israel act unilaterally against Iran,  the U.S. should “stand shoulder to shoulder with Israel.”

• Reuters: Ramin Mostafavi reports that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told a Japanese newspaper on Friday that Iran might be willing to stop higher-grade Uranium enrichment. “We promise to stop enriching uranium to 20 percent purity if we are ensured fuel supply,” he was quoted as saying.
• Los Angeles Times: Borzou Daragahi reports that fuel rods were loaded into the Bushehr nuclear reactor on Saturday.  The move puts the plant within “a few weeks” of being operational. U.S. and Israeli officials have expressed concern that Iran could theoretically make a weapon by extracting plutonium from the spent fuel rods, but Russia has committed to keeping a close watch on the activities at the Bushehr reactor.
• The Atlantic: Senior Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, Reuel Marc Gerecht, argues in favor of an Israeli preventive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Gerecht advocates not just bombing facilities but targeting Iranian personnel involved in Tehran’s alleged nuclear weapons program. “If Tehran were to lose several of its key nuclear scientists and technicians in such a blow, the Iranian program might sustain a crippling hit from which it would be extremely difficult to recover,” writes Gerecht. He concludes, “Although President Obama may become (privately) furious with the Israelis, any Israeli strike will make the United States, and probably even the reluctant Europeans, more determined to shut down Iran’s program.” Gerecht advocated for an Israeli preventive strike in a July 26^th cover story in the The Weekly Standard.
• The Weekly Standard Blog: Lee Smith repeats Anne Bayefsky’s warnings (Eli discussed Bayefsky on Friday) that the Park 51 Islamic community center has dangerous ties to Iran.  Smith suggests that Imam Feisal Rauf’s unwillingness to denounce Hamas, and his ties to Iran are a threat to national security. He concludes, “… [I]t would be a bad idea to allow an asset controlled by American adversaries to be built anywhere in the United States, including lower Manhattan.”

At the core of Bayefsky’s reasoning is her claim that the project’s chairman, Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf was photographed with a representative of the Iranian government in 2008 at a Cordoba Initiative event in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

From this single photograph Bayefsky draws the following conclusions:

The Iranian connection to the launch of Cordoba House may go beyond a relationship between Rauf and Larijani. The Cordoba Initiative lists one of its three major partners as the UN’s Alliance of Civilizations. The Alliance has its roots in the Iranian-driven “Dialogue Among Civilizations,” the brainchild of former Iranian President Hojjatoleslam Seyyed Mohammad Khatami. Khatami is now a member of the High-level Group which “guides the work of the Alliance.” His personal presidential qualifications include the pursuit of nuclear weapons, a major crackdown on Iranian media, and rounding up and imprisoning Jews on trumped-up charges of spying. Alliance reports claim Israel lies at the heart of problems associated with “cross-cultural relations,” since the “Israeli-Palestinian conflict” and “Israel’s continuing occupation of Palestinian and other Arab territories … are primary causes of resentment and anger in the Muslim world toward Western nations.”

Never mind that recent polling confirms the fact that the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a primary cause of resentment and anger in the Muslim world toward the U.S.. Bayefsky is clearly suggesting that a moderate, mainstream group of Muslims can’t possibly build a community center without subversive Iranian connections.

She writes:

In addition, a Weekly Standard article in July suggested that the idea of building an Islamic memorial in lower Manhattan may have originated back in 2003 with two Iranian brothers: M. Jafar “Amir” Mahallati, who served as ambassador of the Iranian Islamic Republic to the United Nations from 1987 to 1989, and M. Hossein Mahallati.

The anti-Muslim campaign that is coming to a head in Manhattan is the product of years of grassroots efforts (see Justin Elliot and Alex Kane‘s excellent pieces on the origins of the campaign) to delegitimize and undermine Muslim Americans. But this attempt by Bayefsky to link the Cordoba Initiative with Iranian influences is particularly disturbing.

Implied in her article — in which she concludes ominously, “The unanswered questions keep mounting,” — is that the Cordoba Initiative, acting as an Iranian agent, is seeking to bring U.S. enemies — as Bayefsky would no doubt label Iranians — on to the “hallowed ground” of the World Trade Center site.

From this the reader can conclude that:

1.) Iran is an existential threat whose operatives seek to spread Iranian influence through community centers in Manhattan, and;

2.) Mainstream, moderate organizations of Muslims simply don’t exist. They can’t help but form links with subversive elements             seeking   to destroy the United States and Israel.

The intolerance directed toward the Park 51 Community Center, in combination with the United States and Israel’s increasingly troubling trajectory of policies towards Iran, has the potential to leave a lasting impact upon U.S. attitudes towards Muslims both domestically and around the world.