Unacceptable

In today’s Washington Post, Richard Perle observes that “No U.S. administration since 1979 has had a serious political strategy regarding Iran.” He demonstrates the ineffectuality of our current policy to end Iran’s “unacceptable” acquisition of nuclear weapons:

It is not clear whether Bush recognizes the perils of the course he has been persuaded to take. What has been presented to Ahmadinejad as a simple take-it-or-leave-it deal — stop the activities that could enable you to acquire nuclear weapons and we will reward you, or continue them and we will punish you — is nothing of the sort. Neither the activities nor the carrots and sticks are clearly defined or settled with our allies, much less with Russia and China. If the punishments require approval by the U.N. Security Council, the United States would need an unlikely combination of approvals and abstentions from council members. The new policy, undoubtedly pitched to the president as a means of enticing the E.U.-3 to support ending Iran’s program, is likely to diminish pressure on Iran and allow the mullahs more time to develop the weapons they have paid dearly to pursue.

OpinionJournal has posted Louis Freeh’s Wall Street Journal column reciting the disgraceful Khobar Towers episode in our continuing refusal to recognize the fact that Iran is at war with us. Freeh notes that “two of the primary leaders of the attack, Ahmed Ibrahim al-Mughassil and Abdel Hussein Mohamed al-Nasser, are living comfortably in Iran with about as much to fear from America as Osama bin Laden had prior to Sept. 11 (to wit, U.S. marshals showing up to serve warrants for their arrests).”

And let’s not forget that Iran’s president was himself a ringleader of the gang that held Americans hostage from November 1979 to January 1981. He is a man with whom the United States has a long overdue debt of honor to settle.

JOHN adds: For insight into how well Iran thinks the current negotiations are going, check out this video.