Wednesday Canada's National Post published an error correction. Last Friday, the newspaper's lead story reported that the Iranian parliament had approved legislation that would compel Jews to wear a yellow strip, Christians to wear a red strip and Zoroastrians to wear a blue strip on their clothes. The story fomented an international storm. Yet it turned out that the story was untrue - or jumped the gun. The Iranian parliament did pass legislation expressing its intention to install a compulsory Islamic dress code for the country's subjects, but it did not characterize the required attire.

On its Web site last Friday the National Post asked its readers to submit their opinions on the question, "Is Iran turning into the new Nazi Germany?" And after the story was published, Canada's new prime minister, Stephen Harper, reacted to the story saying that Iran "is very capable of this kind of action."

In Wednesday's edition, National Post editor Douglas Kelly wrote, "We apologize for the mistake and for the consternation it has caused." For its part, Canada's organized, pro-Islamist Muslim community is demanding that Harper apologize for his statements. Akbar Manoussi of the Ottawa Muslim Association threatened Harper with voter backlash in the next elections for his statements. In his words, "The next time [Harper] goes to get the vote he will find out what people think of him." Manoussi went on to say that Harper's statement "sends a message that he doesn't get his information right."

The entire episode could be chalked up to a tempest in a teacup - just another distorted news story that exaggerated recent developments. The Iranian parliament passed a law appointing a committee empowered to determine a national dress code appropriate for the return of the 12th imam -- the Shi'ite messiah - a return that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad believes is imminent. And as Harper rightly noted, the Iranian regime is more than capable of calling for religious minorities to wear distinctive garments reminiscent of the Nazi era. The National Post received bad information and believed it because it jibed with the character of the regime in Teheran.

Yet the National Post story last Friday, and the storms it caused both before and after its inaccuracy was brought to light, point to a much greater problem than any single Iranian decision regarding what Iranians of various religions must wear.

Last Friday Harper said, "It boggles the mind that any regime on the face of the Earth would want to do anything that could remind people of Nazi Germany." His statement exposes one of the central deficiencies of the West's response to the global jihad, whose command post is currently headquartered in Teheran.

Since the Vietnam War era, a disturbing notion has been accepted by wide swathes of the peoples of the Western world and has become a writ of faith among Western academic and governing elites. That notion is that the last just war was the Second World War and that the last enemy that deserved to be defeated utterly was Nazi Germany. Only Hitler constituted an implacable foe. This conclusion, which was seamlessly grafted onto the pacifist worldview of the radical Left in Europe and the US in the 1960s, and of the Israeli Left in the 1990s, holds that still today, the only enemy that the West can conscionably fight is Adolf Hitler.

By this logic, if Ahmadinejad and his friends say that Jews have to wear a yellow star on their outer garments, then that means that Iran today is the new Nazi Germany and if it is the new Nazi Germany then all people of good conscience have to declare war on Iran.

But the converse is also true. If Ahmadinejad doesn't start sporting a Hitler mustache, if Jews aren't prohibited from entering public parks and if there is no Wermacht or S.S. and no gas chambers, then there is no reason to fight Iran. In fact, in their absence, the only moral thing to do is to negotiate with Iran with an aim of appeasing it because the Iranians aren't Nazis and so an understanding must be reached.

It is in this context that one must judge Wednesday's summit in London between US, Russian, Chinese, British, French and German officials on the issue of Iran's nuclear program. The emissaries met to discuss which package of prizes to award Iran.

Germany, France and Britain propose awarding Iran a light water nuclear reactor and nuclear fuel that will of course serve peaceful purposes only because Iran will commit itself to ceasing it uranium enrichment activities. The Europeans also wish to include a warning to Iran that if it doesn't stop enriching uranium it will face very, very mean and tough sanctions. The Europeans foresee, for instance, denying Iranian nuclear scientists visas to foreign countries.

The Russians and the Chinese object to the Europeans' proposal because they oppose any sanctions on Iran. The Americans support the Europeans' negotiations with the Iranians but have refused their proposals that the US open direct negotiations with Iran and commit itself to not taking action to overthrow the Iranian regime.

The non-Nazi Iranians refuse to have anything to do with the European proposal. Teheran made its displeasure with Europe known on Tuesday when it tested its Shihab-3 ballistic missile that with its range of 1500 kilometers covers most of Europe.

On Wednesday, Ahmadinejad said that any attempt to curb Iran's nuclear program would be considered an act of aggression against Iran. In his words, anyone who dares to commit such an act "will be faced with a lasting and historic slap."

The thing of it is that the question of whether or not Iran is the new Nazi Germany is wholly irrelevant. Iran today is the engine of the global jihad war machine and it is on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons which it has already pledged to use in order to commit genocide. With or without jackboots, Iran is a clear and present danger to the Western world. Yet rather than acknowledge this reality, the leaders of the Western world are allowing and indeed insisting that since Ahmadinejad isn't Hitler, his venality is besides the point, with the point being that he must be appeased.

THIS DISASTROUS Western preference for only fighting Hitler even though he has been dead for 61 years is part of a general culture where appearances are more important than substance. This culture held sway this week in Washington during Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's visit. Olmert carefully chose the image he sought to sell to his American hosts. The one he chose was Israel's classic frontier image as "plucky little Israel."

In his speech before a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, and during his meetings with administration officials on Monday and Tuesday, Olmert strove to be perceived as the natural and legitimate heir to the image of Israel as an independent, strong and bold young country. In his address before Congress, Olmert said, "Our two great nations share a profound belief in the importance of freedom and a common pioneering spirit deeply rooted in optimism. It was the energetic spirit of our pioneers that enabled our two countries to implement the impossible. To build cities where swamps once existed and to make the desert bloom." Continued...