WASHINGTON — When Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrives in New York next week to address the United Nations General Assembly, he will present himself as a great “humanitarian.” Many of the America haters at the U.N. will shower him with accolades and commend his “untiring efforts” to gain the release of Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, two Americans jailed in Tehran since they were detained on the Iraq-Afghanistan border in 2009.

And seeing as past is prologue at the annual UNGA soiree, the participants will then get down to the work at hand: bashing the United States and Israel, demanding recognition of “Palestinian independence” and ignoring the most serious threat to world peace, Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

The attention focused on the release of the young Americans is simply the most recent example of how we consistently underestimate the ability of the theocrats in Tehran to manipulate world public opinion. Last year, just before Ahmadinejad’s UNGA appearance, they released Sarah Shourd, a third “adventure hiker” arrested with Bauer and Fattal. All this has been part of an elaborate smoke screen to distract international attention from the ayatollahs’ atomic aspirations, a monumental, decades-long project shrouded in secrecy. That may be about to change.

On Sept. 18 at 9 p.m. EDT, Fox News Channel will air “Iran’s Nuclear Secrets” — a stunning documentary based on solid investigative journalism. It’s a well-timed exposé on how the Islamic republic has managed to gain the technological know-how to build a bomb and acquire the materials and equipment necessary to do so, the means of delivering such a weapon and the means of bankrolling such an expensive project despite “international sanctions.”

Sunday evening’s special ought to give the global elites indigestion as they sip their drinks and munch hors d’oeuvres at the inevitable UNGA cocktail parties. The broadcast reveals a web of deception, murder, cyber-warfare and international financial fraud — all part of Iran’s effort to build nuclear weapons and the means of delivering them. It’s also an indictment of the U.N.’s inability to perform its most essential mission, collective action to prevent war.

Since 1957, successive U.S. administrations and our allies have relied on the U.N.’s toothless International Atomic Energy Agency and the 1970 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons to prevent the propagation of nuclear weapons. They have proved to be false hopes. When the IAEA began, there were three nations with nuclear weapons. Now there are nine. And the Iranians boldly mock the ability of the U.N. — or anyone else — to try to stop them from becoming the 10th.

When Ahmadinejad stands up to deliver his seventh address to the UNGA next week, he can be counted on to once again claim, “The non-proliferation treaty allows all member states to use nuclear energy without limits, and the International Atomic Energy Agency is mandated to provide member states with technical and legal support.” That’s from last year’s rant. Later on in his tirade, he had the audacity to propose that the year 2011 be proclaimed the year of nuclear disarmament and “nuclear energy for all, nuclear weapons for none.” Lines like that actually get applauded in the General Assembly.

They shouldn’t after Sunday night’s Fox News special. Attending the UNGA will be heads of state, foreign ministers and ambassadors from 193 nations. Among them are representatives from the very states whose scientists, businesses and banks aided and abetted the prospect of an Iranian nuclear Armageddon: the People’s Republic of China, Russia, Germany, Pakistan, South Africa, North Korea, the Netherlands and even Switzerland. They all are exposed in “Iran’s Nuclear Secrets.”

So, too, are never-before-seen documents and photos showing how Dr. A.Q. Khan, the inventor of Pakistan’s nuclear bombs, managed to become the world’s most notorious nuclear proliferator. The satellite imagery of how quickly the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps can build dozens of hidden, underground nuclear sites is frightening. But so is the shell game being played by international banks, doing business in the U.S. as they try to hide the extraordinary sums of money required to fund the Iranian nuclear program.

Of course, none of this will come up next week at the U.N. The foreign striped-pants diplomats and globalist gadflies attending the General Assembly session are unaccountable to the American people and unlikely to watch Fox News Channel. We already know our president doesn’t watch it. But those who care about the threat we face from a nuclear-armed Iran ought to tune in. That way, we can hold our own political leaders accountable — before it’s too late.