Pirate's Cove

Things that are embarrassingly amusing: puppies on the beach, your friends drunk while you are sober, and members of the “reality based community,” such as Roger Cohen

For Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, “a combination of ignorance and arrogance” under the Bush administration squandered countless diplomatic opportunities with Iran and so allowed it to forge ahead with its nuclear program.

Referring twice to Dick Cheney as “Darth Vader,” ElBaradei told me in an interview that “U.S. policy consisted of two mantras — Iran should not have the knowledge and should not spin one single centrifuge. They kept saying, wait, Iran is not North Korea, it will buckle. That was absolutely a mistake.”

OK. So, ElBaradei, a supposedly mature adult and head of the IAEA, is supposed to be listened to when he is referring to Cheney as Darth Vader? I’d like to ask what he was doing all these past eight years, along with the EU nations, to stop Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions? Well, nothing but talk, and being stonewalled.

Instead of building on Iran’s Afghan help in 2001, exploring an Iranian “grand bargain” offer in 2003, or backing 2005 European mediation that hinged on the U.S. agreeing to sale of a French nuclear power reactor, “We got Darth Vader and company saying Iran was in the axis of evil and we have to change this regime.”

So, ElBaradei goes all BDS because the US was unwilling to allow Iran to be given a nuclear reactor with a wink and a smile, much like with North Korea? Wasn’t the point of the negotiations to keep Iran from getting nuclear power? And, yes, let’s build on that deep relationship Iran has with us. Hey, that little thing about being one of the worlds biggest state sponsers of terrorism is no big deal, right?

Imagine if Roosevelt in 1942 had said to Stalin, sorry, Joe, we don’t like your Communist ideology so we’re not going to accept your help in crushing the Nazis. I know you’re powerful, but we don’t deal with evil.

Imagine if the world hadn’t had to suffer through 50 years of Cold War. Why is it that folks on the Left always want to work hand in hand with mass murderers and scum?

Here is where the op-ed truly degenerates into (typical) leftist insanity

Iran ceases military support for Hamas and Hezbollah; adopts a “Malaysian” approach to Israel (nonrecognition and noninterference); agrees to work for stability in Iraq and Afghanistan; accepts intrusive International Atomic Energy Agency verification of a limited nuclear program for peaceful ends only; promises to fight Qaeda terrorism; commits to improving its human rights record.

Anyone think any of that would happen? Yeah, me neither.

The United States commits itself to the Islamic Republic’s security and endorses its pivotal regional role; accepts Iran’s right to operate a limited enrichment facility with several hundred centrifuges for research purposes; agrees to Iran’s acquiring a new nuclear power reactor from the French; promises to back Iran’s entry into the World Trade Organization; returns seized Iranian assets; lifts all sanctions; and notes past Iranian statements that it will endorse a two-state solution acceptable to the Palestinians.

If anyone on the Right wrote something like that, we would think this was a parody, or they were drunk. For the left, this is just the reality based universe they live in. I bet the Iranians are getting a good laugh this morning.