State Department's Imam Rauf Touts Iran's Clerical Regime

Writing in the Weekly Standard blog, Bill Kristol unearths some truly revealing statements by Ground Zero Mosque imam Feisal Abdul Rauf on the Islamic theocracy of Iran (which, of course, has been in a state of war with the United States since 1979).

As the Green Movement captured the hopes and imagination of the free world, Feisal Abdul Rauf– by then already “in the loop” as a consultant at the US State Department– was urging Obama to re-affirm and recognize the radical Islamist foundation (vilayet-i-faqih, or the “guardianship of clerics”) upon which the regime is based.

Kristol writes:

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?

Why on earth is the American taxpayer paying for this?