Is Bush Backing Away from A Core Pillar of the War on Terror?

It's beginning to look that way, if Andrew McCarthy is right:

By this explication, there can be no worse enemy of the United States than Iran, the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. No nation, then, is more worthy of pariah status — no negotiations and no deals. Iran, after all, has scoffed at the Bush Doctrine. It has continued to pull the strings of Hezbollah, the terrorist organization it owns and coordinates with Syria — the terrorist organization which works with al Qaeda and which, like al Qaeda, has a history of bombing American embassies and American military installations, in addition to kidnapping, torturing and murdering American government officials. Iran has helped al Qaeda leaders elude American forces. It has confederated with Iraqi insurgents to attack American and British forces. Moreover, earlier this year, the Islamic Republic’s new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, threatened to annihilate Israel, a stalwart American ally.

It was thus puzzling, to say the least, that the administration would choose to reward this heinous behavior with a seat at the negotiating table — certainly absent an unambiguous, verifiable foreswearing of terror promotion.

Well, the news service Iran Focus reports on the substance of the proposal made to Iran by the State Department in conjunction with its “partners” China, Russia, Britain, France, and Germany. As detailed, it can only be regarded as crushing for those who took the Bush Doctrine seriously.

The proposal is a desperate petition, calling on the mullahs and Ahmadinejad only to abandon their quest for nuclear weapons. There is nothing about terrorism. And the overture is surely futile. Russia and China have exhibited no stomach for meaningful penalties if the blandishments fail to do the trick. Quite apart from that, though, why would Iran accede to demands when its intransigence has already resulted in the abandonment of what was purported to be a foundational tenet of U.S. foreign policy during the war on terror?