At [last] Wednesday’s Heritage Foundation conference on the Middle East peace process (which, as I wrote yesterday, was primarily devoted to pushing the almost-universally-scorned “three-state solution” for Israel-Palestine), Middle East Forum director Daniel Pipes made an unusually revealing comment while discussing Iran’s upcoming presidential elections.

“I’m sometimes asked who I would vote for if I were enfranchised in this election, and I think that, with due hesitance, I would vote for Ahmadinejad,” Pipes said. The reason, Pipes went on, is that he would “prefer to have an enemy who’s forthright and obvious, who wakes people up with his outlandish statements.” (Video of the event is available by following the link to the Heritage website; Pipes’s comments come at about the 1:29:00 mark.)

The reason Daniel Pipes is not concerned about the prospect of another term for Ahmadinejad is the same reason you shouldn't be overly concerned. Even serving as the president of Iran, Ahmadinejad has no power over the military and he cannot set foreign policy. He is not authorized to make decisions related to nuclear energy. Those types of decisions are made by the Supreme Leader and the unelected Council of Guardians.

It's not a good sign when a country has a raving nut for a president, but Ahmadinejad's crazy talk and provocative language mean almost nothing. Pipes and his allies knew this all along but that didn't prevent them from using Ahmadinejad as a poster-boy for the Clash of Civilizations.

It's easier to avoid efforts at peace if you've convinced yourself that every conceivable approach is doomed to fail and that all Iranians are equally implacable and dangerous. If Iran=Nazi Germany, it doesn't matter whether it changes a minister here or there. Better to keep a scary face on the thing so it is easier to mobilize the public against them.

That is precisely why it is important that Ahmadinejad lose. Without him making things easy for the warmongers, we might actually make some progress. And progress is not what Pipes and his pals are interested in.