Barack Obama is playing nice with Tehran, and the best is yet to come. Tehran will respond to Obama’s “extended hand from us” with praise for the changed attitude in Washington. This, in turn, will be cited by Democrats as evidence of the success of President Obama’s “new tone.” Sure, we’ll be locked into touchy-feely sham diplomacy for the rest of the time it takes the mullahs to attain nukes. But the important thing is that we get the world to like us again, right?
Americans are not looking for Obama to solve problems, but to end problems. And one way to end a problem is by ceasing to classify it as a problem. So: “Will the United States ever live with a nuclear Iran?” Sure — no problem.
What I want to know is: if Barack Obama sees it as his “job to the Muslim world . . . to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy,” how is he accomplishing this goal by extending his hand to a regime that regularly chops off the hands of its own citizens? After all, the Baghdad shoe-thrower had feet from which he removed shoes and hands to do the removing. Which has to make him the envy of these poor Iranian souls. Might it not be a good – a decent – idea to mention the human rights atrocities inflicted upon what Obama called the “great” Persian people?
Oh, I forgot – silly me – “smart power.” Back in the dark days of ideologically-driven dumb power, the president would label as “evil” a regime that performed punitive amputations on its citizens. Now we geniuses offer our own limbs up for the chopping.
