Rick Santorum. Photo: wiki commons.

Hamid Babaei, Iran’s spokesman at the United Nations, used the phrase “patently absurd” to describe an article published by former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum and best-selling author Joel C. Rosenberg, equating Iran with Nazi Germany before the Holocaust.

Babaei, according to Iran’s semi-official state news agency Mehr on Monday, insisted that “Iran had never attacked its neighbors for almost 250 years.”

He said, “Comparing cases to Hitler has a long history and had a torture for history.” He added that those who resort to comparisons with Hitler are “those who prevented peaceful settlements.”

Babaei accused the two of trying to “sabotage” Iran’s negotiations with world powers. His reply also described “more aggressive sanctions” proposed by the writers as “against the international rules of conduct and definitely detrimental to nuclear negotiations,” who Mehr noted had compared Russian President Vladimir Putin to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in a previous article.

The headline was backed up by a poll, the authors said:

In January, we engaged polling firm McLaughlin & Associates to ask a series of questions of 1,000 likely U.S. voters. Among them: “Do you agree or disagree with the following statement: ‘If the world does not take decisive action, and the Iranian regime is permitted to build nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them, the Iranian regime will one day attempt to annihilate the State of Israel and bring about a Second Holocaust?'” A stunning 80% of Americans agreed. Only 16% disagreed.

They wrote:

On May 21, 1935, Adolf Hitler delivered his infamous ‘peace’ speech. In his masterful history of Nazi Germany, ‘The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich,’ William L. Shirer quotes the Fuhrer’s remarks at length:

“Germany needs peace and desires peace.”

“Germany has solemnly recognized and guaranteed France her frontiers.”

“Germany has concluded a non-aggression pact with Poland.”

Shirer, a CBS Radio correspondent, called the address ‘one of the cleverest and most misleading of his Reichstag orations this writer, who sat through most of them, ever heard him make.’ He observed the West seemed beguiled by the speech, noting the Times of London welcomed Hitler’s words ‘with almost hysterical joy.’

‘The speech turns out to be reasonable, straightforward, and comprehensive,’ stated the Times editorial. ‘No one who reads it with an impartial mind can doubt that the points of policy laid down by Herr Hitler may fairly constitute the basis of a complete settlement with Germany.’

They wrote on CNN:

Yet Hitler was lying to buy time. He would not bring peace, but a horrific war, annexing Austria, invading France and Poland, and ordering the extermination of six million Jews. Such history is worth noting in today’s showdown with Iran. Many in the West seem beguiled by the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani. But are they truly interested in peace, or buying time to build the Bomb?

They asked if Hitler’s invasion and occupation of the Rhineland between Germany and France will be equivalent to Tehran announcing, or using, a nuclear warhead.

The pair quoted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the right way to address the Iranian nuclear threat:

“Now you know how you get [an] agreement with Iran?” Netanyahu asked recently. “Not by relieving pressure but by adding pressure. Pressure is what brought Iran to the negotiating table in the first place, and only more pressure will get [them] to abandon their nuclear weapons program. Greater pressure on Iran will not make war more likely; it will make war less likely — because the greater the pressure on Iran and more credible the threat of force on Iran, the smaller the chance that force will ever have to be used.”

The authors concluded:

We cannot say force won’t be needed. But Netanyahu is right that our last best chance for a peaceful outcome is increased American pressure and resolve. The stakes are too high for anything less.