If the bizarre request of President Ahmadinejad to lay a wreath at ground zero has been put to rest once and for all, New Yorkers can thank three persons — the police commissioner, Raymond Kelly; Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Daniel Gillerman, and Matt Drudge. That, at least, is how we reconstruct the events that yesterday stunned and briefly outraged thousands of New Yorkers, a number of candidates on the hustings, and even the White House, as it looked for a while that consideration might be given to the idea that the Iranian anti-Semite and terror master, due in town for a meeting of the U.N. General Assembly, might be allowed downtown to visit the scene of Al Qaeda’s crime.

That was certainly the request from the Iranians, and our interpretation of the events is as follows. We can’t vouch for every syllable, but this is what we are told — or on one point, deduce — happened. Mr. Kelly understood that this was a non-starter from the moment he heard about it, but (this is the deducing part) wanted to make sure that key figures in the city, and elsewhere, understood what was afoot. So when, at a private dinner party at which Ambassador Gillerman was also present, Mr. Kelly was asked what he thought Mr. Ahmadinejad would want to do at ground zero, the commissioner growled that the Iranian wanted to “scout the next attack.”

We interpret that remark not as the commissioner saying literally that the tyrant wanted to scout the next attack (though Iranian diplomats posted to the United Nations have been expelled from America in recent years for doing just that), but, figuratively, that the commissioner was aware that there was no benign logic to such a visit. Mr. Gillerman is nothing if not a savvy player in this arena. So he told the story to a meeting of a couple of dozen Jewish leaders, while Mr. Kelly himself, at a routine press briefing at police headquarters, said that an Ahmadinejad visit to ground zero was “something that we are prepared to handle if in fact it does happen.” Our Sarah Garland put the story up on www.nysun.com, and within minutes, the eagled-eyed Mr. Drudge linked it on his Web site under a banner headline in red.

The idea was immediately recognized for what it is – an offensive absurdity, a provocation. A leading spokesman for the Jewish community, Malcolm Hoenlein, said the idea was an offense to the memory of those killed at ground zero. Senator Clinton, in a blunt statement, called the prospect of such a visit “unacceptable.” Mayor Giuliani, Governor Romney, Senators Dodd and Obama, and a former senator running for president, Fred Thompson, rushed out strong statements, as did a future candidate for mayor, Rep. Anthony Weiner, and a number of members of the City Council.

Then the White House put out a remarkable statement through a spokesman for the National Security Council. The question of Mr. Ahmadinejad going to ground zero “is a matter for the City of New York to resolve,” the spokesman, Gordon Johndroe, said. He added pointedly: “It seems odd that the president of a country that is a state sponsor of terror would visit ground zero.” In other words, as a headline writer for www.nysun.com put it, “Bush to New York – You Deal With It.” The president’s no fool. If he had big-footed the idea, he’d have embarrassed the mayor, and if he’d failed to drop a hint, well, let’s just say the White House didn’t want to take chances. The state department issued a stronger statement.

In fact, the idea that Mr. Ahmadinejad visit the pit itself at ground zero had already been pronounced as a non-starter at a meeting earlier this month of advance persons from the police department, the United States Secret Service, and the Port Authority. There was a report yesterday evening on a WNBC Web site quoting unnamed security officials as saying that there may be little U.S. officials can do to prevent Mr. Ahmadinejad from visiting the area of the 9/11 attacks. But the city officials were saying privately that it wasn’t going to happen — and in strong enough terms that if Mr. Ahmadinejad is permitted anywhere in Manhattan south of Canal Street, the Bloomberg administration will look disingenuous.

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For those with time in grade on this issue, the drama brought to mind the efforts, during the Clinton administration, to bring Yasser Arafat on a visit to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. A number of figures, even in the Jewish community, flirted with the idea, on the theory that if Arafat were brought face to face with an eloquent telling of the evil that befell the Jews of Europe, he might be moved to renounce it. Then harder-headed figures asserted themselves and the visit was cancelled, its backers embarrassed but more mature for it. Though there’s always someone. Next week, Columbia University is planning to host on its campus the Iranian leader who denies the Holocaust, is pursuing a nuclear weapon, and calls for Israel to be destroyed.

The person who could prevent this entire farce from taking place is the district attorney of Queens County, Richard Brown. When Mr. Ahmadinejad flies into John F. Kennedy International Airport, he’ll be in Queens. That is the borough of Specialist Jonathan Rivadeneira of the U.S. Army’s 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, who was killed on Friday in Iraq by an improvised explosive device of the sort that American officials say are supplied and crafted by Iran. Rivadeneira’s death left his mother, Martha Clark of Jackson Heights, Queens, childless. Let Mr. Brown seek a warrant for Mr. Ahmadinejad’s arrest and give him a true civics lesson in an American dock. Let’s just say we have no doubt that, were a warrant issued, Mr. Kelly and New York’s Finest would be delighted to enforce it.