The October talks will draw controversy over whether they help legitimize the Iranian regime. Obama’s GOP critics, stepping up their overall critique of his foreign policy as too soft, will accuse him of making concessions to Iran, just as they accused him of making concessions to Russia on missile defense. Obama aides say these aren’t concessions, they’re decisions based on the U.S. national interest. The legitimacy of Iran’s regime, they add, will be determined on the streets of Tehran, not in a European conference room.
Those are defensible positions. But there’s nothing wrong with concessions if they lead to greater results in return. The confrontation with Iran is moving into a critical period. To Iran’s nuclear technology clock, and Israel’s existential threat clock, add a third clock: Obama’s promised results clock. The clocks are running.
The White House may be saying that the legitimacy of the Iranian government is up to the people of that nation, but they’re certainly talking a different story about Honduras, where the legal actions of that nation’s judiciary are being blatantly ignored – and, in fact, punished. nothing like consistency…..
Maybe if Honduras ramped up the Great Satan rhetoric, brutalized a few thousand dissidents, hanged a couple of gays, bombed an Israeli embassy or two and cranked up the centrifuges…