
The Iranian delegation arrived at the UN General Assembly in New York this  week to an enthusiastic Western welcome led by the Obama administration, without  having rescinded one iota of its aggressive policies or nuclear  ambitions.
“We welcome an Iran ready to engage seriously through that  (diplomatic) process given that it represents the international community’s  commitment to hold Iran accountable, but also being open to a diplomatic  resolution.”
This convoluted message was how Ben Rhodes, US Deputy  National Security Adviser, referred Monday, Sept. 23, to the US Secretary of  State John Kerry’s get-together with Iranian Mohammad Javad Zarif Thursday,  along with foreign ministers of the five world powers.
 Their  acclaimed purpose is to test Tehran’s willingness for progress in nuclear  negotiations. But before this test, the Obama administration agreed to the  highest-level face-to-face contact between the US and Iran since the 1979  Iranian revolution.
 Rhodes did not shut the door on a meeting, even  a brief one, between President Barack Obama and President Hassan Rouhani at this  week’s annual gathering of world leaders in New York.
 British  Foreign Secretary William Hague and European Union Foreign Executive Catherine  Ashton had already met the new Iranian foreign minister Monday, after which  Ashton commented that she had found him resolved to go forward with talks (on  Iran’s nuclear program) and “many things flow from that.”
How to account  for this burst of eagerness in Washington and Europe for a rapprochement with  the Revolutionary Republic of Iran?
 Has Tehran agreed to give up  its nuclear weapon program? The new president and even supreme leader Ayatollah  Ali Khamenei say their government will never develop a nuclear  bomb. 
 So what if they said so? Have their words caused Iran’s  nuclear facilities, open and concealed, to suddenly vanish like a desert  mirage?
 Has Iran announced itself ready to open up all its nuclear  facilities to international watchdog inspections? Will Rouhani make this offer  when he addresses the UN Assembly Wednesday?
 Has Iran promised to  stop developing ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear  warheads?
 And what about the Islamic Republic’s long sponsorship of  state terrorism against Israeli and Jewish targets across the world? Have those  death-dealing networks been recalled home?
 And has Tehran started  pulling its troops out of Syria and terminated its partnership in butchery with  Bashar Assad, given up its control of Lebanon or stopped sending rockets to  Hizballah?
 Has anyone noticed that Iran is building a Red Sea Naval  base at Port Sudan facing the coast of Saudi Arabia? Or that a large-scale  munitions production and distribution center for supplying Iran’s Middle East  allies is going up in Sudan?
 And finally, has Iran abandoned its  ambition to wipe Israel off the map, or stopped denying the Nazi  Holocaust?
 The slick new president easily ducked the second  question by saying: “I’m not a historian.”
He and members of his regime  have suddenly been given free license to fill the op-ed pages of important  Western media with smooth propaganda for Western audiences.
 But  while polishing his civilized aspect towards the West, Rouhani made sure the day  before he flew to New York to display Iran’s steel teeth with its largest  display ever of missiles with a range of 2,000 kilometers. 
 The 30 weapons on show included 12 Sejil and 18 Ghadr missiles which can reach  Israel and US Gulf bases - although Rouhani stated with a straight face that  they were “for defensive purposes only.”
The turbaned Iranian president  has an obvious motive for gulling the West into accepting the Islamic Republic’s  conversion from a regime bent on “exporting the Islamic revolution” to a lover  of peace: He was elected to end the sanctions crippling the country, without  giving up the regime’s objectives.
 It is less clear what moves  President Obama to swallow the Iranian bait and go for a historic US  rapprochement with the revolutionary republic. On every occasion, he protests  that Israel’s security is his overriding concern. Yet he is rushing to accept a  nuclear Iran whose avowed ambition is to destroy Israel.
 Under  their slick new façade, the ayatollahs have not changed their spots. Washington  has.
Sources close to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu say he is determined to  tear the false veil off Iran’s face – even if he is a lone voice, when he  addresses the UN later this month.
 Last Thursday, Netanyahu tried  throwing water on Rouhani’s claims that Iran’s nuclear program was peaceful,  calling them fraudulent. He dismissed Iran's offer to engage in diplomacy as  false “media spin,” which should not fool anyone.
 But no one in the  West was listening. And at home, people were asking what happened to Netanyahu’s  solemn pre-election pledge to stop Iran attaining a nuclear bomb.