Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Davos, who usually can be counted on as a voice on the hawkish half of the spectrum for the Democrats when it comes to foreign policy in the Middle East, came out recently with a press release on American relations with Iran that was so inappropriate and silly that we couldn’t let it pass without comment. After the American ambassador at the United Nations, Zalmay Khalilzad, was rebuked by the Bush administration for fetching up at Davos, Switzerland, and sharing a dais with the foreign minister of Holocaust denying, nuclear-bomb-building, terror-sponsoring Iran, Mr. Emanuel defended the ambassador for his freelancing.

Said Mr. Emanuel: “When it comes to Iran the Bush-Cheney Administration never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Now we see the White House attacking our well respected UN Ambassador for simply sitting next to an Iranian official at the World Economic Forum last week when he was in fact making the U.S. case on Iran to the international community. This is just another example of the administration’s failed policy on Iran in disarray. Instead of attacking our own ambassador, the Bush Administration should have seen the World Economic Forum as an opportunity to advance US interests. Instead, the White House continues to squander chances to make progress even in its last year.”

Well, one might as well say that instead of attacking our own administration, Mr. Emanuel should have seen his seat in Congress — where he actually is supposed to represent a district in Chicago, not Davos — as an opportunity to join with most Americans, and for that matter, with most Iranians, in expressing our common disgust with the Iranian government, its actions, and the ideology it represents. The leading presidential candidates from Mr. Emanuel’s own party are out on the campaign trail faulting Mr. Bush for saber-rattling on Iran. They are promising to negotiate with the same mullahs who are sending suicide bombers out to kill Israeli and Argentine Jews and American tourists. Americans deserve a serious bipartisan effort to defeat this enemy. Instead they get partisan sniping based on the fantasy that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard can be defeated in chats between ski runs at Davos. Back at headquarters in Tehran, they would be laughing — except they’re preparing to stone two women to death on allegations of adultery.