Tehran, March 6 - A group that, in its efforts to persuade the public to support a treaty governing Iran's nuclear program assured the public of a religious ruling by a leading Iranian Islamic scholar against the development of atomic weapons, announced today that the same Islamic authority has issued a ruling that bars earth's atmosphere from increasing in temperature to any degree that threatens ecological stability, obviating international efforts to prevent climate change. As such, the group declared, climate change will no longer occupy a place in the group's ideology, campaigns, or rhetoric.
Leaders of the Democratic Party and former Obama administration officials told reporters at a Washington, DC press conference that the inviolate nature of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's fatwas renders further efforts to forestall atmospheric and oceanic warming pointless, just as an earlier fatwa they claimed he had issued rendered unnecessary any meaningful enforcement measures to ensure Iran complies with the 2015 JCPOA nuclear agreement.
Former Secretary of State John Kerry urged his Democratic colleagues to free up organizational resources and time for other important areas of concern now that Khamenei had solved the climate crisis. "Just a few short weeks ago our own Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez raised the alarm that we have only twelve years to address climate change," he noted. "But that's no longer the case. My friend Foreign Minister Javad Zarif assures me the ayatollah has now put out a fatwa forbidding the climate to change, and whatever his fatwas say, Javad tells me that's what happens. A Democratic refocus on other issues such as Israel-Palestine will bring significant benefits, in addition to shutting down right-wing criticism of our sincere efforts to avert crisis."
Obama thanked Iran's Supreme Leader for the fatwa. "I wish to express my gratitude to His Excellency Ayatollah Khamenei for yet another important step in making the world a better place," he declared in a written statement. "Just as I referred to an anti-nuclear-weapons fatwa that [former adviser] Ben Rhodes and I promised Americans definitely exists, and definitely means we can trust Iran, I am gratified that we now have another reason to say wonderful things about our partners in Tehran."
Obama and Kerry made sure to note that President Donald Trump, by contrast, had made no such pronouncement barring the climate from change, a fact that they claimed calls into question his administration's willingness to tackle the real threats facing the country and the world.