The willful foolishness of our leaders and what passes for their foreign policy continues.  Today, Reuters reports that the US is “disturbed” by Ayatollah Ali Khameini’s sermon on at Saturday’s “al-Quds Day” prayers.

“I don’t know how to interpret it at this point in time, except to take it at face value, that that’s his policy,” [Kerry] said in the interview with Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television.

“But I do know that often comments are made publicly and things can evolve that are different. If it is the policy, it’s very disturbing, it’s very troubling,” he added.

While a full translation of the sermon isn’t available, you can get the flavor of the remarks from Khameini’s official website.  As you might imagine, if you weren’t living in a dream world of US-Mullah cooperation, there is only confrontation and aggression towards the US and Israel, and a reiteration of Iran’s regional ambitions.

The speech, given only days after the Vienna Agreement was announced, echo the victorious tone of Hitler’s speech at Saarbrücken, given on October 9, 1938, barely more than a week after Munich.  (There’s a text of the speech available online, but I’m not comfortable linking to the site that has it.  Google, if you like.)  The New York Times gave the following assessment of that speech:

Those who had hoped that giving in to virtually all of Hitler’s demands at Munich would lead to European appeasement will find little consolation in the speech of the Fuehrer at Saarbruecken. The moral that Hitler draws from the events of the past few weeks is that only by military strength and threats of war can Germany get what she wants.

Since Kerry is having a hard time figuring out what’s going on here, let me help: the Ayatollah, as befits a man of the cloth, is a True Believer.  That is, he really, truly believes in his cause, really truly believes that it is right, really truly believes that God is on his side, guiding history in his direction.  Indeed, he may well believe that all of history up to this point is nothing more than prologue to Iran’s ascendancy.

From his point of view, the Western collapse in the face of Iranian resolve is nothing less than divine vindication.  Yes, the West is weak, decadent, and lost.  But it is materially and militarily strong.  What else, other than Allah, could have prompted it to collapse so thoroughly, to accede on virtually every substantive point?  What else, other than divine intervention, could have brought a President Obama, so friendly to the Iranian cause, to power just in time to rescue the regime from its own people?

To such a mind, the outcome of the talks is a ratification of his genocidal ideology, not a reason to modify it.  It’s been disturbing and troubling for 35 years.