Iranian Diplomacy

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has proven himself a capable instigator and a pretty poor diplomat. His call for Israel to be "wiped off the map" surely sends chills up the spine of anybody who abhors bloodshed. Even Palestinian and Egyptian diplomats rebuked Ahmadinejad for his radicalism. The incident, however, crystalizes the total failure of the Europeans to contain the Iranian situation. For the last five years, the Europeans have insisted that diplomacy must rule the day in dealing with Iran, and that they, as extraordinary diplomatists, are capable of remedying the problems in Tehran. Although it is humorous to laugh at the overstated braggadocio of the French and Germans, the situation is dire. Far from advocating a full-scale military operation, I think it is time to re-evaluate the current strategy for handling Iran. Although we have had stellar success in Iraq, despite many missteps (it wouldn't be a war without them), Iran is overwhelmingly a different level of threat, with conventional military capabilities far exceeding those of Iraq's. Remember, Iran has been funding its nuclear and conventional military capacity with legal oil money over the years, when Saddam was forced to accept mostly French, German, and Russian money only (as an aside, three cheers for Paul Volcker standing up to the corrupt entrenched bureaucracy of the sham that is the United Nations). It is time for this administration to quit outsourcing our Iranian policy to Paris and Berlin, and do something before there are 7 million dead Israelis and a nuclear cloud lingering over Jerusalem.