Ground Zero Mosque Imam Supports Khomeinism

He's so fucking moderate.

From Carl:

If you're an American, your tax dollars are now at work sending the man who said these words all over the Middle East.

"President Obama said many of the right things as the turmoil surrounding the outcome of the Iranian election unfolded. After Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, spoke Friday, Obama has an opportunity to make an additional crucial point....Friday, Khameini reaffirmed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the winner. And he made clear that this election was not a referendum on the foundations ofthe Islamic Republic....After the revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini took the Shiite concept of the Rightly Guided Imam and created the idea of Vilayet-i-faqih, which means the rule of the jurisprudent. This institutionalizes the Islamic rule of law. The Council of Guardians serves to ensure these principles....[President Obama] should say his administration respects many of the guiding principles of the 1979 revolution -- to establish a government that expresses the will of the people; a just government, based on the idea of Vilayet-i-faqih, that establishes the rule of law."

The Weekly Standard adds:

So presumably Rauf is now travelling the Mideast, courtesy of the U.S. State Department, touting the idea of vilayet-i-faqih—and the Iranian application of that idea—as appropriate for Muslims. Aren’t State Department representatives supposed to make the case for liberal democracy, or even an Islamic version of liberal democracy? Surely they’re not supposed to be justifying Khomeini-ism? And surely not Khomeini-ism as interpreted perhaps even more illiberally by Khamenei?