Tom Friedman offers up heaping piles of phony outrage over Morsi’s visit to Iran:

But “there is no Communist bloc today,” said Mandelbaum. “The main division in the world is between democratic and undemocratic countries.”

Is Morsi nonaligned in that choice? Is he nonaligned when it comes to choosing between democracies and dictatorships — especially the Iranian one that is so complicit in crushing the Syrian rebellion as well? And by the way, why is Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, lending his hand to this Iranian whitewashing festival? What a betrayal of Iranian democrats.

Was Friedman similarly apoplectic when Morsi traveled to Saudi Arabia last month? I don’t believe he was. Saudi Arabia is even more repressive and its government is even less representative than Iran’s, but Friedman wasn’t saying that Morsi’s visit meant that he was siding with despotic monarchy against the Saudi people, was he? If Morsi were on the side of “democracies” against dictatorships, he would have to be at odds with most of America’s client states in the region.

Friedman’s makes two mistaken assumptions. He assumes that attendance at the meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement is an endorsement of Iran’s government and Iranian policies, which isn’t the case. Traditionally non-aligned governments are probably not interested in taking clear sides in the midst of the growing tensions between the U.S. and Israel and Iran, and why would they be? If they aren’t endorsing Iranian policies, it doesn’t follow that most of the NAM members are interested in taking orders from Washington on how to conduct their foreign affairs, either. If Morsi is going to Iran, he is probably doing so with the knowledge that it demonstrates a break with the old Egyptian leadership and shows that Morsi can act independently of the U.S. Morsi is likely much more concerned with his domestic audience and exercising the power of his office than he is worried about the plight of the Iranian opposition, and it would be very unusual if it were otherwise. The impulse to see all other countries’ dealings with Iran, no matter how minimal, through the distorting lens of our hostility towards Iran leads many Americans to jump to badly flawed conclusions about those other countries and their governments’ intentions.