Krauthammer's Folly - Negotiating with Iran

In his Washington Post column today (via FrontPageMag.com), Charles Krauthammer snatches defeat from the jaws of victory by pulling a typical bone-headed pragmatic conservative move. First, he correctly identifies Iran's devious motivation in demanding bilateral negotiations with the United States, i.e., to delay the West until Iran can produce deliverable nuclear weapons, and the Left's predictably mindless agreement with this demand:

All of a sudden, revolutionary Iran has offered direct talks with the United States. All of a sudden, the usual suspects -- European commentators, American liberals, dissident CIA analysts, Madeleine Albright -- are urging the administration to take the bait.

It is not rare to see a regime such as Iran's -- despotic, internally weak, feeling the world closing in -- attempt so transparent a ploy to relieve pressure on itself. What is rare is to see the craven alacrity with which such a ploy is taken up by others.

Then, even after having stated the obvious conclusion, i.e., no negotiations with the Iranian mullahs, Krauthamer abruptly undercuts his own case at the very end and offers the Left, the Europeans and the Iranians an offer that they could not refuse:

We should resolutely say no.

Except on one condition. If the allies, rather than shift responsibility for this entire process back to Washington, will reassert their responsibility by pledging support for U.S. and/or coalition military action against Iran in the event that the bilateral talks fail, then we might achieve something.

You want us to talk? Fine. We will go there, but only if you arm us with the largest stick of all: your public support for military action if the talks fail. The mullahs already fear economic sanctions; they will fear European-backed U.S. military action infinitely more. Such negotiations might actually accomplish something.

As I posted today at FrontPageMag.com, the idea of negotating with the world's #1 state sponsor of terrorism should never have come into consideration in the first place:

I agree with the first twelve out of fifteen paragraphs of Charles Krauthammer's article.

In that thirteenth paragraph, Krauthammer foolishly suggests that the U.S. negotiate with Iran if the Europeans give an iron clad promise to back U.S. millitary action against Iran should the negotiations fail.

First of all, Krauthammer already knows that the Iranian mullah's main priority is to delay the Western powers to give themselves enough time to generate deliverable nuclear weapons. Nothing would do more to generate delay than to get the U.S. tied up in a long negotiation process.

Second, Krauthammer should know that, if the U.S. were to ever claim negotiations failed, the Iranians and the Europeans can simply claim that the U.S. has not truly exhausted "all avenues of the negotiations process". The same thing sort of thing delayed the U.S. invasion of Iraq for almost a year and allowed Saddam Hussein to prepare his post-combat insurgency strategy and probably hide his WMD (with the help of the Russians).

We need to step back and look at the big picture:

1. Iran is the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism for eight of the past nine years according to the U.S. State Department's Pattern's of Global Terrorism report.

2. Iran President Ahmadinejad is a religious fanatic, who thinks he is going to bring about the emergence of the Muslim messiah by initiating a war with the Great Satan United States.

3. Iran has been funneling IED's into Iraq that have killed American soldiers.

4. Iran is trying with all its might, via its surrogate Moqtada al-Sadr, to get a theocracy installed in Iraq.

5. Iran has supported Syria in its funneling of foreign terrorists into Iraq to kill American troops.

6. Neither America nor any free nation should negotiate with terrorists or terrorist-
sponsoring nations. Hello!

The longer the overthrow of the terrorist-sponsoring Iranian regime is delayed, the greater the chances that they will be able to produce a deliverable nuclear weapon and prepare their terrorist network for a counter-attack against the U.S. and its allies.

The U.S. should attack Iran now - not negotiate.

Further I would propose that the U.S. investigate whether it would be more feasible to attack the Iranian leadership and the bulk of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, rather than attacking Iran's nuclear sites as the mullahs fully expect by this point. I am not a millitary expert, but I imagine the U.S. millitary has the weapons technology to effectively take out these two groups to a large degree. In other words, cut off the head of the snake, and then go after the nuclear facilities with the help of the Iranian people who support us.