IRAN SPEAKS – AT 10:02 A.M. ET:  Do you sometimes get the feeling that the president of Iran is a child, and that the president of the United States is his rag doll?  From Reuters:

(Reuters) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rejected a renewed call from the United States to engage diplomatically to overcome the nuclear standoff, saying he saw no change in Washington's hostile policy.

Speaking at a factory inauguration on Saturday, Ahmadinejad said a message by President Barack Obama to mark the Iranian new year last month contained "three or four beautiful words" but nothing new of substance.

"They say that 'we have extended our hands to the people of Iran but the government of Iran and the people of Iran pushed it back'. What hand did you extend toward us?" Ahmadinejad said in a televised speech.

"What changed? Your sanctions were lifted? The adverse propaganda was stopped? The pressure was alleviated? Did you change your attitude in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine?"

And...

Iran would easily cope with any new sanctions on petroleum imports, Ahmadinejad said, adding that such measures would only serve to strengthen his people's resolve.

"You should know that the more hostile you are, the stronger an incentive our people will have, it will double," he said.

COMMENT:  If I were the president of Iran, I'd say exactly the same thing.  What does he have to lose?  The Iranians, historically, have been superb negotiators, and they've basically backed us into a corner.  What do we do now?  Iran has rejected our overtures.  Iran has rejected European negotiations for seven years.  Iran's nuclear program forges ahead.  The Chinese have already said they won't vote, at the UN Security Council, for anything more than cosmetic escalation of sanctions.  And Hillary Clinton, apparently reverting to her 1960s childhood, has essentially ruled out military action.  (Hillary is on a sixties roll:  Yesterday she determined, after much thought and prayer, that there was no military solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.  In fact, Israel has survived for 62 years precisely because of its military strength.)

So why should Iran do a thing except spin its centrifuges and laugh?  It took the president of the United States, Chicago semi-tough guy Barack Obama, four days to cruise up to a microphone and denounce the suppression of Iranian democracy demonstrators.

How do you spell FAILURE?  That describes our Iran policy.  Washington is already planning for a nuclear Iran.  I wonder how Hillary and the Wizard of Pennsylvania Avenue will explain that away.

April 3,  2010