The Clintonian Iran Policy

Michael Ledeen:

From time to time various wags have suggested that we send Bill Clinton to negotiate with the mullahs on our behalf. It turns out it isn’t necessary; we’ve just adopted his methods. Apparently those in charge of our Iran non-policy concluded that the appeasement of North Korea worked so well, we should do the same thing with Iran. I suppose it’s only a matter of time before Condi borrows one of Albright’s big hats, and goes to Tehran to dance with their dictator.

The architects of this latest foolishness are whispering the same reassuring nonsense as their predecessors did about North Korea: We’re offering light-water reactors, which aren’t as dangerous as heavy-water reactors, we won’t give them anything unless they agree to stop enrichment, blah, blah, blah. All of which is true, and totally insane, since a madman is, famously, a person who thinks that he will produce a different outcome by doing the same thing over and over again.

It is utterly fanciful to think that Iran will negotiate away their nuclear-weapons program, whatever the combination of diplomatic carrots and sticks. They have no interest whatsoever in giving away their bombs, whatever the actual status of their arsenal. For them, the only point of negotiations is to gain more time to pursue their war against us, to kill more Americans and Brits in Iraq, to mobilize more jihadis all over the region, to threaten our regional friends and allies, to enlarge their terror network throughout the world, to stuff their war chest with petrodollars, and to enlarge their arsenal.

We have been at war with Iran for 27 years. Now, we're in the best strategic position ever---we've got strong military presences in Afghanistan and Iraq. Stopping now is like negotiating with Hitler once we reached the Maginot Line.