I added a new term to our Lexicon last week, as I mentioned, and now I see others struggling for just the right term to use. I already landed on the perfect one!
Current calls for “engaging” Iran are a euphamism for sitting down and wagging tongues with them for still more years and years while Iran uses the time to continue building nuclear weapons and to create an enormously powerful Islamofascist superpower state in the region, aid global terrorist networks, and work toward destroying Israel and attacking America and western interests everywhere. They often use the fuller term “engaging in a dialogue”.
Liberals in Europe and here in North America insist, after failing over and over and over again, that sitting down with the mullahs and having a damn fine cuppa tea and a bun will help at this point, notwithstanding their own repeated abject failures.
Read this OpinionJournal.com editorial—it’s a must read today (after you read our columnists naturally).
Calling for talks with Iran is just cheap talk.
BY AMIR TAHERI
Tuesday, May 9, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDTSomething interesting is happening with regard to the crisis over Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Slowly the blame is shifting from the mullahs to the Bush administration as the debate is redirected to tackle the hypothetical question of U.S. military action rather than the Islamic Republic’s real misdeeds. “No War on Iran” placards are already appearing where “No Nukes for Iran” would make more sense.
The attempt at fabricating another “cause” with which to bash America is backed by the claim that the mullahs are behaving badly because Washington refuses to talk to them. Some of this buzz is coming from those who for years told the U.S. to let them persuade Iran to mend its ways. They include German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and his British and French colleagues in the European Union trio that negotiated with Iran for years. Preparing to throw in the towel, they now say the U.S. should “directly engage” Iran. That would enable them to hide their failures and find a pretext for blaming future setbacks on the U.S.
The “engage Iran” coalition also has advocates in the U.S. Over the past few weeks they have hammered the “engagement” theme with op-eds, TV soundbites and speeches. Some have recommended John Kennedy’s “sophisticated leadership” during the Cuban missile crisis as a model for George W. Bush. The incident has entered American folklore as an example of “brilliant diplomacy,” but few bother to examine the small print. The crisis, as you might recall, started when the Soviets installed nuclear missiles in Cuba, something they were committed not to do in a number of accords with the U.S. Kennedy reacted by threatening to quarantine Cuba until the missiles were removed. The Soviets ended up “flinching” and agreed to removal.
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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