Time Mag. on "Iran's Secret Weapon: The Pope"

Published yesterday, posted online today:

The diplomatic chess game around Iran's nuclear program includes an unlikely bishop. According to several well-placed Rome sources, Iranian officials are quietly laying the groundwork necessary to turn to Pope Benedict XVI and top Vatican diplomats for mediation if the showdown with the United States should escalate toward a military intervention. The 80-year-old Pope has thus far steered clear of any strong public comments about either Iran's failure to fully comply with U.N. nuclear weapons inspectors or the drumbeat of war coming from some corners in Washington. But Iran, which has had diplomatic relations with the Holy See for 53 years, may be trying to line up Benedict as an ace in the hole for staving off a potential attack in the coming months. "The Vatican seems to be part of their strategy," a senior Western diplomat in Rome said of the Iranian leadership. "They'll have an idea of when the 11th hour is coming. And they know an intervention of the Vatican is the most open and amenable route to Western public opinion. It could buy them time." [Read the full article.]

I don't agree with the tone of the final sentence in this paragraph. It seems to imply that Iran is using the Vatican for its purposes in an attempt to "buy time." Neither should the Vatican be criticized for acting non-interestedly and for favoring peace. The Vatican has a unique capacity to act as a go-between in these sorts of high-level conflicts and is very careful not to risk its stated neutrality.

The unstated problem with this article involves the nature of the current Iran regime. If the current Iranian regime is in actuality committing grave crimes against its people (of which, I think, there is evidence), and if the Iranian regime is in fact building up his military infrastructure to further destabalize the region (of which, I also think, there is evidence), then casting the Vatican and Iran as "good buddies", so to speak, is highly problematic.

Frankly, I'd like to see more evidence of all this supposed "good will" between the two countries.
There's plenty more to take issue with in this article. If I had to mention one item, it would be this:

Religious experts say that Catholicism and Shi'a Islam have a surprisingly similar structure and approach to their different faiths. "What you have in Iran is a strong academic tradition, with both philosophical and mystical aspects — in many ways like Catholicism," says Father Daniel Madigan, a Jesuit scholar of islam, and a member of the Vatican's commission for religious relations with Islam who helped arrange for Khatami's visit. There is also a clerical hierarchy in Shi'ism that is absent in other forms of Islam.

Sure, and a British teacher who named a classroom teddy bear after a student named Muhammed is in a Sudanese Jail today on charges of blasphemy (the penalty for which, if she is found guilty, would be a public lashing or six months in jail) .... you know, because that sort of thing happens in the Vatican all the time.

[update: I agree with some commentators that my example of the jailed British teacher is somewhat "reckless", one might say. I would submit, however, that it is really no more reckless than the comparison made in the article between Islam in Iran and Catholicism. That was my point, however poorly it was made. The article consistently attempts to put the Vatican and Iran in the same boat in ways that I think are ultimately untenable.]

Update 2: Hot Air (a popular blog with huge comment threads) picked up on the story here. I have to say I'm surprised at the generally-favorable (albeit rather ignorant) treatment of this and related issues. Maybe there's hope?