"When Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa on novelist Salman Rushdie for The Satanic Verses, it was the opening shot in a war on cultural freedom. Two decades later, the violence continues, and Muslim fundamentalists have gained a new advantage: media self-censorship. "
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/02/hitchens200902

Linked from http://www.hitchensweb.com/

Couple things I will point out in article:

"Not everybody agreed with me about the nature of this confrontation. President George H. W. Bush, asked for a comment, said that no American interest was involved. I doubt he would have said this if the chairman of Texaco had been hit by a fatwa, but even if Salman’s wife of the time (who had to go with him into hiding) had not been an American, it could be argued that the United States has an interest in opposing state-sponsored terrorism against novelists."

So, was there an American interest involved?
And I'm not sure Bush senior would have said there was an American interest if it involved a chairman of Texaco.

When you say American interest you mean something which one considers employing national power [military or soft power] to resolve.
So, if you say it is an American interest you have be able to say what as nation we should do.

It not being an America interest, doesn't mean we should ignore it. But merely publicly condemning it, isn't solely an action one takes to deal with an American national interest. A national goal like: Iran must revoke Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa, or we will or will not do something- like establish diplomatic relations [those pesty preconditions] or we will nuke Iran out existence, or we will offer carrots of some sort, or whatever.

And the fact that Iran violated our embassy [and other acts of war] could be seen as higher priorities to our national interest in regard with Iran.

Anyways, my question: Was Bush senior wrong to say it wasn't a national interest.
And if it was a national interest, is it still a national interest, and if so, what should be done to cause the Iranians to stop having this [or other] fatwa as a State policy.

And Hitchens nails the politically correct imbeciles to the wall:

"Sometimes this fear—and this blackmail—comes dressed up in the guise of good manners and multiculturalism. One must not wound the religious feelings of others, many of whom are poor immigrants in our own societies. To this I would respond by pointing to a book published in 1994. It is entitled For Rushdie: Essays by Arab and Muslim Writers in Defense of Free Speech. Among its contributors is almost every writer worthy of the name in the Arab and Muslim world, ranging from the Syrian poet Adonis to the Syrian-Kurdish author Salim Barakat, to the late national bard of the Palestinians, Mahmoud Darwish, to the celebrated Turkish writers Murat Belge and Orhan Pamuk. Especially impressive and courageous was the list of 127 Iranian writers, artists, and intellectuals who, from the prison house that is the Islamic Republic, signed their names to a letter which said: “We underline the intolerable character of the decree of death that the Fatwah is, and we insist on the fact that aesthetic criteria are the only proper ones for judging works of art.… To the extent that the systematic denial of the rights of man in Iran is tolerated, this can only further encourage the export outside the Islamic Republic of its terroristic methods which destroy freedom.” In other words, the situation is the exact reverse of what the condescending multiculturalists say it is. To indulge the idea of religious censorship by the threat of violence is to insult and undermine precisely those in the Muslim world who are its intellectual cream, and who want to testify for their own liberty—and for ours."