Wasting his time or ours

"The logic that they can persuade us to negotiate through sanctions is just a failure,"
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — Monday, 26 July, 2010



Did Saddam ever taunt us like this? I mean, the argument from appeasers and co. has always been that sanctions equal an effective means of getting someone's attention. Then you have Russia saying (convincingly) they will only drive them away from the table. Similarly you have China sabotaging efforts to bring North Korea to talks. They are partly right. Sanctions don't equal effective brinkmanship — first, because they are NEVER airtight; second, because they only punish the people that are expendable in the eyes of a totalitarian regime. What gives. Where are we really headed? Are we even driving the conversation? We could have undermined Ahmadinejad legitimacy long ago based on the contested election, and yet we don't bother.

Am I sounding too Machiavellian? I think not. It's just realism folks. We have a sworn enemy or two in the world. Best stop acting to the contrary.