Posted by
Always To The Right on Monday, February 08, 2010 12:15:17 AM
Just days after dropping “impossible” conditions onto their earlier offer to swap uranium with the West, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has ordered Iranian nuclear teams to proceed with higher-level enrichment.
This not only comes as a slap in the face to the West, but also
demonstrates that Iran has designs on its nuclear program other than
clean energy
Ahmadinejad made this move because he knew he could. The West has
shown weakness and impotence in dealing with Iran for last several
years, but especially over the last two, when that NIE signaled to Iran
that the American intelligence community didn’t want to confront the
threat of a nuclear-armed Iran. Hillary Clinton argued today that this weak approach paid dividends for the US in an interview aired earlier today
As for “the rest of the world” just beginning to see Iran
they way we do, that’s a flat-out lie. Our allies in Europe already
knew what the Iranians were doing, the same leaders who were aghast at
that 2007 NIE. The Israelis, who will be the first target of the
Iranian mullahcracy, certainly had no illusions about Ahmadinejad or
Ali Khameini. The notion that we needed to act like a doormat for the
past twelve months as some sort of justification for protecting the
interests of the US and our allies is a victimization fetish that will
get people killed, a childish view of international relations that does
nothing but make the US less able to avoid war before Iran launches its
nukes.
The only people using “smart power” diplomacy are Vladimir Putin and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.