Tuesday, the New York Post ran my op-ed Tehran's Tentacles of Terror. I argued that Iran, in conjunction with Syria and Hezbollah, was pursuing a broad policy to push the US out of the region - not just in Iraq, but also against Turkey and Afghanistan and, through Hezbollah and Palestinian proxies, against Israel. At the same time Iran is pursuing nukes which will make any confrontation with them much more difficult. If their plan is successful, the US could windup facing a radical Islamist superpower.

That being said, an astute reader caught an error. I wrote that the seminaries of Iraq could foster a moderate Shia Islam that would undermine the radicalism dominating Iran. As an example I wrote:

"Already, the grandson of Iranian revolutionary leader Ayatollah
Khomeini has relocated to Iraq, where he denounced the Iranian regime
as violating the spirit of Islam."

It turns out, that according to Radio Farda (citing al-Sharq al-Awsat) Hossein Khomeini returned to Iran in January where he will be facing a special court for his comments. My information about Hossein Khomeini comes from an appearance he made at the American Enterprise Institute in September 2003.

I don't think this substantially changes the substance of my article (which also neglected to discuss Iran's nefarious activities to its north in the Caspian, Central Asia, and its complex alliance with Russia.) Nonetheless, a mistake is a mistake and should be owned up to.

While I am at it, a friend of mine sent me a note about my recent letter to The Washington Post on Columbia Professor Rashid Khalidi. He said that he had had Khalidi as a Professor at Columbia in the mid-1980s and he was a very good teacher. My friend's pro-American and pro-Israel credentials are impeccable. So fair enough. I have heard the same about the late Edward Said. But when they put on their pundit hat, they are something different entirely and they should expect to accept the consequences. (As do I - on an admittedly much smaller stage.)