Respect

Stories such as these absolutely astound me.

With Iran's vice-president and foreign minister in the room, the organizers of the dinner on Friday night began by announcing they had disinvited Swiss cartoonist Patrick Chappatte, one of the listed panelists, because the issues were too serious.

The star guest, U.S. Senator Joe Biden, ranking Democrat on the Senate foreign relations committee, was missing. The organizers kept saying he was on his way.

Moderator David Ignatius, a Washington Post columnist, apologised for the fact that wine had been served, upsetting the Muslim guests. Waiters cleared the offending glasses.

They also removed the menus since the hotel had planned to serve non-hallal meat, breaching Islamic dietary rules. Even the soup spoons were withdrawn -- erroneously, it transpired.

One participant asked whether different cultures could not tolerate each other's dietary customs. Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi responded that tolerance was fine but it did not mean people should not respect each other's religious values.

If wine was served, his delegation could not participate in the meal, he said.

So basically, "Yes. You can tolerate our dietary customs, you infidel dogs." But wait, it appears to get even better, particularly when it mentions the nonsense that Senator Joe Biden had to say. After his little outburst about Secretary Rumsfeld at Dr. Rice's Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing, I'm getting pretty sick of Biden. Anyway, read it all.