Guess who isn't coming to dinner

My Man of the Week: Nestor Kirchner, left-of-centre President of Argentina, who, in signal contrast with Señores Chávez, Ortega, Morales and Correa, has shown sufficent decency to decline a meeting with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Harry's Place reminds us of an appalling event which Chávez et al seem to have conveniently forgotten, and says of Kirchner's stand:-

'There was a time when this was the minimum you could expect from those who identified themselves with the Left. Not anymore.'

Meanwhile, Ahmadinejad's boss (Mahmoud's only President, remember) has been issuing a call for Muslim unity. This is an issue which presents Tehran with something of a dilemma. They want to back their fellow Shias in Iraq, but they fear that if they go too far they'll alienate the Sunni majority in the Middle East as a whole. The ideal solution would be if they could lead Sunni and Shia in a united struggle against the real enemies - the ones whose fiendish cunning sets Muslim against Muslim and thus causes all those bombings in Iraq. Who they? Well, to be fair to the Supreme Leader, it isn't only the Israelis. We Brits are distinctly dodgy as well.