Obama Reaches Out to Ayatollahs, Gets Laughed At

It's funny. Americans who disagree with the guy are dismissed with a cavalier "I won," but the guy has no problem making clandestine overtures to these maniacs who are murdering people in the streets. Then he gets touchy in press conferences when reporters ask a mildly challenging question.

Never thought I'd say this, but I'm almost getting nostalgic for the steady-handed leadership of Jimmy Carter.

Prior to this month's disputed presidential election in Iran, the Obama administration sent a letter to the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, calling for an improvement in relations, according to interviews and the leader himself.

Ayatollah Khamenei confirmed the letter toward the end of a lengthy sermon last week, in which he accused the United States of fomenting protests in his country in the aftermath of the disputed June 12 presidential election.

U.S. officials declined to discuss the letter on Tuesday, a day in which President Obama gave his strongest condemnation yet of the Iranian crackdown against protesters.

An Iranian with knowledge of the overture, however, told The Washington Times that the letter was sent between May 4 and May 10 and laid out the prospect of "cooperation in regional and bilateral relations" and a resolution of the dispute over Iran's nuclear program.

What is there to cooperate on? The Iranians have been waging war on us for 30 years now and their stated goals is our destruction. Geez, we can't even send them a strongly-worded letter. Instead we pander to them and they laugh at us.

The Iranian, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the topic, said the letter was given to the Iranian Foreign Ministry by a representative of the Swiss Embassy, which represents U.S. interests in Iran in the absence of U.S.-Iran diplomatic relations. The letter was then delivered to the office of Ayatollah Khamenei, he said.

The letter was sent before the election, whose outcome - delivering a supposed landslide to incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - has touched off the biggest anti-government protests in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The Obama administration, while criticizing a violent crackdown on demonstrators by Iranian security forces, has said that it will continue efforts to engage the Iranian government about its nuclear program and other issues touching on U.S. national security.
...
"On the one hand, they [the Obama administration] write a letter to us to express their respect for the Islamic Republic and for re-establishment of ties, and on the other hand they make these remarks. Which one of these remarks are we supposed to believe? Inside the country, their agents were activated. Vandalism started. Sabotaging and setting fires on the streets started. Some shops were looted. They wanted to create chaos. Public security was violated. The violators are not the public or the supporters of the candidates. They are the ill-wishers, mercenaries and agents of the Western intelligence services and the Zionists."

Sure looks like they're ready for some of that vaunted dialogue.

Obama doesn't even realize it, but the game is over.

He lost.

Before June 12, Obama's eagerness to negotiate with Ahmadinejad -- ridiculed by his conservative critics -- was hailed by the establishment and the left as proof of his high-minded faith in diplomacy, a healthy antidote to President George W. Bush's allegedly close-minded approach.

But now, if the clerical junta prevails, anyone who shakes hands with Ahmadinejad will have a hard time washing the blood off his own hands.

For some reason, Obama can't fully accept this. In his press conference Tuesday, the president finally condemned the outrages in Iran in terms he should have used a week ago. But he also kept alive the idea that the current Iranian regime could be a fruitful negotiation partner, despite what has happened in that country.

"It's not too late," Obama explained, for the regime to negotiate with the international community. He wouldn't even cancel plans to invite Iranian officials to Fourth of July barbecues at US embassies.

That amounts to tacit approval of the bloodshed and fraud that we've already seen and acceptance of the ultimate triumph of the regime. And it won't work.