When "Realists" Come to Tehran

They get humiliated:

Those who have been calling for dialogue with Iran should be biting their tongues, and nobody more so than Lee Hamilton. He is the head of the Woodrow Wilson Center and, as co-chair of the Iraq Study Group, recommended that the Bush administration “constructively engage” Iran. In fact, Hamilton tried to do just that on the issue of Haleh, and sent letters and other communications through back channels to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, asking that he use his “good offices” to correct the “mistaken” imprisonment of Haleh. Unfortunately, Hamilton's attempts at constructive engagement were met by obstinacy and now a forced confession.

Hamilton's experience undercuts entirely his argument, and the argument of many others, that negotiations with this Iranian regime could be a useful exercise. If Iran cannot be persuaded that a frail, 67-year-old academic poses no mortal threat to the Iranian government, it is hard to imagine that it can be persuaded of anything, particularly on more controversial issues such as Iraq or nuclear weapons.

Of course, Hamilton and company aren't realists at all.

If they were, they wouldn't be shocked, shocked that Shiite Iran is hosting Sunni Al Qaeda, something they assured us would never happen.