The Basij Are Not Coming

Here is the solution. We should announce that we will talk to Tehran unconditionally, but not as a substitute for stopping Iran from getting the bomb. For its part, Iran can continue enrichment while we talk. For our part, we will continue to plan a military strike to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities, and we will promise to carry it out soon—say, before the 2008 presidential primaries begin—absent some other solution. There is never harm in talking, as long as it doesn’t keep us from acting.

--Joshua Muravchik

Couch potato warmonger Josh doesn't really like the fact that impelled by the Iraqis, we are attending a conference at which Iran will also appear.

But it's ok if we bomb them.

Iran is not our friend, and back in Carter's day their holding our diplomats hostage was a legitimate casus belli, and maybe you can't talk to people who kidnap your diplomats. That was a quarter-century ago. Last time I checked, the Teheran-Caracas Axis was not about to send the Basij to wade ashore at Miami Beach.

We talked to Mao. We talked to Brezhnev. We talked to Gaddhafi. We ought to be talking to Raúl Castro.

Repeat after me: Diplomatic contact does not equal moral approval. Diplomatic contact does not . . .

Too bad about the Basij. As Cavafy might have put it, those people were some kind of solution.