http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/07/31/iran/

Let’s go home, it’s all over for Iran.
This administration will be a despised one by left, and the right as well. A blot of shame in our foreign policy history.

EXCERPTS:
“…The only birds left in the administration are poultry. Ms. Rice is the fowl in chief. ”

” “While much of the world was hyperventilating over the possibility that the United States (and maybe Israel) were getting ready to launch a new war against Iran, Bolton was looking at the realities and concluding that far from bombing, the U.S. was preparing to do a deal with Iran,” Sick wrote in a recent posting. “He will have observed that the worst of the neocons (including himself) are now writing books and spending more time with families and friends, cheerleading for more war by writing Op-Eds from the outside rather than pursuing their strategies in policy meetings in the White House.”

“…The decision to send Burns to Geneva, Wilkerson said, was “a sign that the administration believes it has gained some strategic leverage vis-à-vis Iran and that it can now pursue what Bush has said he was pursuing all along — real diplomacy. This means that Rice is ascendant and [Deputy National Security Advisor] Elliott Abrams and Dick Cheney are in their boxes. How long this lasts, however, is a good question. ”

http://www.forward.com/articles/13852/

We’re always ‘oh so close’ to a massive breakthrough, every belch out of Iran is followed by reams of excited writing, followed a day or two later by muted posts claiming the Iranians are trying desperately to negotiate and the US is not pursuing diplomacy, further followed by the inevitable denial – When the news is reported of yet another head-fake, where upon the usual suspects come up..

The so called grand bargain deal rejected by the US faxed in by the swiss, and the fantasy where the planet will joyfully enrich uranium in conjunction with Iran and their centrifuges, in some delusional atomic love fest monitored by the clueless El Baradei, mixed in with the inevitable comment of ‘inalienable rights’ or some other relativist position topped with occasional Zionist bashing seasoning.

The Apologist Motto: Wash, rinse, repeat cycle.

Oops, just woke up. Yeah, right. Sure.

Dr. Ledeen is absolutely right about this Grand Bargain fetish that every adminsitration has. Lets just try to listen to what Iran says to us for a change–no interpretation, just listen to it:

-Death to America
-America is the Great Satan
-Erasure of the Zionist Entity
-Holocaust is a myth
-Jews will be killed bigger than the alleged Holocaust
-We have missiles that can hit Israel
-We have artillery to clogs the Persian Gulf
-We WILL NOT stop enrichment
-Every once in a long while we say that we believe nuclear weapons are against Islam but according to Islam we can also definitely use the Koranic principle “Taghieh”, (legalized lying under Islam)

Do we have a problem of comprehension here?

One usualy picks a moment when both sides have a common base of something as a foundation for negotiations. Without this common foundation, negotiations are impossible and only an uneducated moron would demand them. If I think the object in your hand is green and you think that same object is white, there is absolutely nothing we agree upon to negotiate abut that object! With Iran, where do we start negotiating–where is our foundation? How does one open the subject with them?

“Sir, we can prove we aren’t the Great Satan”

“Sir, please don’t erase Israel”

“Sir, we can prove the Holocaust for you”

or “carrots and sticks”:

“Sir, please accept our humble apologies for the brazen act of establishing a democracy next door to you and stop killing our soldiers in Iraq, then we will give you (insert gift that they don’t care about, don’t need, and already have plenty of, like money or trade or everything else under the sun, here)”

I can imagine one negotiating method that would probably gain their attention:

“Sir, we have disbanded our military and have converted to Islam as per your wise demand letter addressed to the infidel Bush. We humbly request you raze the Capitol and build a magnificent mosque in its place to solidify our break with the wrong path. We will stone women who got raped forthwith, just as you do”.

That might be a good starting point for a negotiation, no? I’m sure they’ll be happy to cooperate. Khamenei might even say “they’re listening for a change!”

I’d stick with Ahmadinejad over Euro-mullahs Khatami and the Pregnant(with hope sof being Prez again in March 2009 thru his EU Darlings helo)mullah Rafsanjani. Ahmadinejead’s “goon diplomats” may not be able to spell right, but at least with him and his faction in charge, we have the ghost of a chance, to benefit from “Intensification of Antagonisms”– something we need a big big dose of just about right now with Iran’s Islamic Republic of Terror.