Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, whose tenure at Foggy Bottom began with such energy and fine language about support for freedom in the Middle East, is begging the Iranian foreign minister to come to a "future of Iraq" conference in Egypt next week. She told the Financial Times that it would be a "missed opportunity" if Minister Mottaki didn't show up.

In the same interview, she denied ever thinking about regime change in Iran. Our Iran policy, according to the secretary, is to "have a change in regime behavior." Some day she will perhaps explain how any rational person can believe this cast of characters capable of changing behavior that has been constant for 28 years.

We are back to the days when Madeleine Albright went to international meetings hoping to get a one-on-one with an Iranian minister so she could apologize for past American sins and get on with the glorious business of striking a grand bargain with the mullahs. When that didn't work, President Clinton did the public apology, and his administration trotted out a number of unilateral concessions. His vice president even made a secret deal with the Russians permitting them to sell weapons and supply expertise for the Iranian nuclear program. All for naught; the mullahs spat in our face and continued as before.
Read the whole piece by Michael Ledeen. It seems that our once tough national security advisor has become just another state department bureaucrat unable to learn from the past. As Ledeen points out, every president since Jimmy Carter has attempted to coddle the Iranians, hoping for a diplomatic breakthrough (even tough-minded Reagan was guilty of this), and every single time the Iranians have outright denied or double-crossed the attempt. One must conclude that after so many failed tries it can only be arrogance of the Western bureaucrat to conclude that this time the outcome will be different.

Labels: Iran, Rice, State Department