Dear Ayatollah: Obama disses A-jad?

When I first saw the headline on Drudge this evening – Dear Ahmadinejad: Obama Drafts Letter to Iran (linking to a Financial Times article) – my first thought was this was a great premise for political satire, if there was such a thing beyond the pap we get on SNL, etc., which there isn’t.  Well, once in a while, South Park.  In fact, setting the South Park kids to drafting imaginary letters to A-Jad does make laugh, even if the whole enterprise would be pointless – and perhaps because of that.  

Nevertheless, reading the actual article I found that the Drudge headline was misleading (I know – you’re shocked) and things had, thankfully and at last, gotten a tiny bit more subtle. These letters – which are being drafted by our ‘sophisticated’ State Department, evidently for Obama’s perusal – “would be addressed to the Iranian people and sent directly to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, or released as an open letter.” 

What, no A-jad?  Is the President of Iran going to be dissed by Obama after the Iranian wrote one of his long and rambling letters, in this case of congratulation, to our new president?  (Yes, oh refugees from Kos-land.  I know Ahmadinejad is just a figure head.) Well, it looks that way.

But whatever transpires, my guess is this will be an exercise in extreme futility (not to be confused with extreme sports, which have some point). In the fact, the whole enterprise will be comic all on its own. Here are some of the possible results: 1.The mullahs will ignore the letter entirely (or nearly).  2. The mullahs will be angered by something in the letter and negotiations with be broken off or never start.  3. The mullahs will launch into tedious discussions with us that will go nowhere (meanwhile continuing with their nuclear weapons program.)   

Which of the above – or other possibilities – would you predict?  But before you do, remember one thing that our State Department seems always conveniently to overlook: The mullahs are crazy.

UPDATE:  Interesting related article by Amir Taheri.