GENEVA -- As I write this, the United Nations Durban Review Conference on "racism" is still officially in session, stumbling toward the close, on Friday, of its five-day run at the U.N.'s palatial offices on the shores of Lake Geneva. But after the opening fireworks, provided Monday by Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a strange torpor hangs over the proceedings. Apart from the shuffling of paper, droning of sparsely attended speeches and clack of heels on marble floors, the main action among those still in attendance seems to center on cultural diversions and U.N. snack bars.

By U.N. lights, this conference--almost two years in the planning--was supposed to be a grand affair, gathering state delegations and nongovernmental organizations from around the globe. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon flew in to deliver the keynote remarks Monday morning, celebrating the conference opening as offering vistas of "a new day, a move in a new direction, all nations together as one," etc., etc. And then, for the U.N., something went very wrong. But what?

Reality, that's what. The despot-heavy U.N. General Assembly designed this Durban Review conference from the start as a vehicle for anti-Semitism, anti-Americanism and an array of other U.N. campaigns targeting free societies--such as a global gag on free speech about Islam. Ultimately, this drew two big responses. President Barack Obama's administration, to his credit, confirmed last week that the U.S.--chief sugar-daddy to the U.N.--would join Canada, Israel and a handful of other nations in boycotting the conference.

And Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad exercised his U.N.-given right to fly in from Tehran to take the stage. The U.S. decision to skip the festivities appears to have put a damper on high-level attendance. Ahmadinejad was the only head of state to show up. At the U.N., where procedure routinely trumps morality, protocol dictated that after the opening niceties, Ahmadinejad should get the first speaking slot of the main program. Thus did Ahmadinejad, top speaker in the lineup, hop aboard the U.N.'s elaborately fashioned Durban vehicle with such glee that he blew out the tires.

There are now two versions of his speech making the rounds--the written text handed out, and the transcript of his slightly more manicured remarks. But whichever one favors--and both were delivered Monday into the public domain--Ahmadinejad put on quite a show. In the name of fighting "racism," he slammed democratic Israel as "totally racist" and called for "eradicating this barbaric racism." He went on to blame most of the world's ills not only on "Zionists," but on the United States, and--in an eerie echo of such 20th century totalitarians as Lenin and comrades--he concluded with a messianic call for "a common global system" in which all humanity would be subject to "the sublime goal" of the "righteous managing of the perfect human being." Continued here....