While the Iranian regime is shaken by a protest movement fueled by those who’ve never known a life other than that controlled by the mullahs and their henchmen in the Revolutionary Guard, it is worth reflecting on the wrongheadedness and abject stupidity of the advocates for normalization with this grotesque regime.
The late, great Irving Kristol once quipped that a neoconservative is a liberal who has been mugged by reality. It looks like President Joe Biden and the normalization crowd just ran into the Ayatollah in a dark alley and had to empty their pockets.
How else to explain the recent change in tone from the administration and its allies? White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Monday, "The door for diplomacy will always remain open, but as of now we don’t see a deal coming together anytime soon." Those remarks followed Iran envoy Robert Malley’s indication that a return to the 2015 nuclear deal is not on the agenda right now.
Shocker. Biden and the Europeans have pretended for nearly two years that this gang of terrorists could be brought to heel through diplomacy. Backed by the scientific consensus of elite liberal opinion, the policy heavyweights in the Biden administration were certain that the same regime that murders teenage girls in Tehran was capable of hashing out a deal in Vienna on uranium enrichment levels—and keeping its word.
Imagine what the world would look like now if the Biden administration had gotten its wish. Billions of dollars in cash flowing to Iran as the ayatollahs simultaneously sell hundreds of millions, if not billions, in weapons to Russia for use against Ukraine.
Jean-Pierre, the White House flack, also assured reporters Monday that the White House "will continue to confront Iran’s behavior in the region." What, exactly, is the evidence of that? Furthermore, it would be nice to know what the White House plans to do about Iran’s malign behavior beyond the region, as the country now fuels the conflict in Ukraine.
Former president Barack Obama was barking up the right tree when he told his former lackeys at Pod Save America a few days ago that—oops!—he should have publicly backed the Green Movement in 2009. "In retrospect I think that was a mistake," he said, adding, "Every time we see a flash, a glimmer of hope, of people longing for freedom, I think we have to … shine a spotlight on it, we have to express some solidarity about it."
We look forward to his reflections on the ill-advised, and now, thankfully, moribund nuclear deal. If Obama, Biden, and company could believe Iran wasn’t hell-bent on building a bomb, surely they can believe we won’t say, "I told you so."