On the One.

Wasn't part of the reason we ditched Eastern Europe and yanked the strategic missile defense there was so that Russia would play ball with us in toughening up on Iran? Yeh, good call.

Those of us with a little more sense knew that would never happen and sure enough, it won't. How could sanctions on Iran be "counterproductive"? There has to be a "productive" in order to have a "counterproductive". So far, nothing has been productive and Iran, following Joe Biden's advice, has only hardened its stance on their belief that they have a "right" to an unmitigated domestic nuclear enrichment program.

[Hillary Clinton] said the U.S. did not believe it was time to impose new sanctions, noting that Iran has made pledges to take small steps that if fulfilled would serve as confidence-builders. Those include opening up a recently disclosed uranium enrichment plant to U.N. inspectors and sending existing stocks of low enriched uranium to Russia for reprocessing.

Iran insists it has the right to a full domestic nuclear enrichment program and maintains it is only for peaceful purposes, such as energy production. The U.S. and others believe Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons.

Iran is already under three sets of U.N. sanctions for failing to address those.

Well that's encouraging. "Confidence-builders"? Are you serious? This is the "smart diplomacy" we're supposed to believe will cure all the world's ills and make us one giant Yasgur Farm? (Where Woodstock happened)

I love how we rely on a bunch of "if's" when conducting our foreign policy these days. "If" Iran does this and that we'll have some confidence that they're not building the bomb. What happened to acknowledging the superiority of the United States and conducting foreign policy on our terms? That's how we won WWII. That's how we won the Cold War. We're going to lose this one if we continue to operate in a reflexive manner rather than offensively.

Iran says it has a right to nuclear enrichment. Says who? Allah? On what philosophical or moral ground can one make the argument that Iran has a "right" to enrich uranium? Tell me. Please. 

If they believe it's their "right" to do so, how will yip-yap diplomacy change that? You notice how there's never any answer to that question? Unlike more offensive diplomacy, with the threat of not only sanctions but military action, we can set benchmarks that are either met or not. There are concrete, intended results that can be articulated and defined so all the players know the score.

With this new kinder, gentler yip-yap, nobody knows anything. I suppose the goal remains the same-preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons. But we have no way of knowing if there is any progress being made towards that goal. The exact same problems exist with the 30-year struggle to bring lasting peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Talking with people who believe that what they're doing is their right is completely useless. The Arafat lesson should have been learned in the late-70's.

But it wasn't. So now we try the same nonsense with Iran. It, too, will fail.

Russ

(cross-posted at RedState)

Update on Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 1:25PM by Russ

HotAir jumps in.