Iran 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0

[Geee]

National Review:

On the campaign trail, presidential candidate Barack Obama once called for a “reset” policy with Iran. Supposedly, the unpopularity of the Texan provocateur George W. Bush and his administration’s inability to finesse “soft power” had needlessly alienated the Iranian theocracy.

After all, the widely quoted but highly politicized 2007 National Intelligence Estimate claimed that Iran had ceased work on a bomb in 2003 and would not have a weapon for the foreseeable future. That flawed analysis fueled another popular talking point: that the Bush- Cheney warmongers were looking for more phantom weapons of mass destruction in Iran of the sort that had led them into Iraq.

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In contrast, Obama proclaimed himself to be a more sophisticated sort of president. His left-wing politics, post-racial appeal, and his father’s Muslim heritage supposedly might win over the heretofore needlessly alienated Iranians — and most others in the Middle East as well. At no point did candidate Obama stop to consider that the Iranians could view his loud politicking and opportunistic criticism of Bush’s hostility toward Iran — identical to standard U.S. bipartisan policy under at least the four prior presidents — as weakness to be manipulated rather than magnanimity to be appreciated.

After Obama took office in 2009, we had a new Iran 2.0 policy implemented on a variety of fronts. We courted Vladimir Putin by canceling an Eastern European anti-ballistic-missile project in hopes that the Russians would help stop Iranian proliferation. We scheduled face-to-face talks with the Iranians. We did not press initially for economic sanctions of Iranian exports and imports. We largely ignored Iranian terrorists who were killing Americans in Iraq.

The Obama administration kept quiet in the spring of 2009 when a million Iranians hit the streets to protest their cruel authoritarian regime. It seemed to apologize for the 1953 overthrow of Iranian Mohammed Mossadegh. It reopened our embassy in Syria, Iran’s closest ally in the Middle East. It jawboned Israel, Iran’s worst enemy in the Middle East.

The result of Obama’s Iran 2.0 policy?