A commitment to refrain from abetting Iraqi insurgents in the murder of American troops?
A commitment to stop funding Hezbollah, the world’s most adept terrorist organization — and the one that, prior to 9/11, had trained al-Qaeda operatives and killed more Americans than any other?
A commitment to restrain its Revolutionary Guards and Qods force from targeting Americans?
A commitment to retract its threats to wipe Israel from the face of the earth?
Well . . . not exactly.
In the midst of the war on terror, at a time when the express policy of the United States was to regard and treat as terrorists the regimes that sponsor terrorism, in circumstances where Iran was actively coddling al-Qaeda and killing American soldiers, the Bush administration insisted on . . . no preconditions for negotiating with Iran.
Sure, Bush (unlike Obama) did not offer a personal sitdown with Ahmadinejad. But does that really matter? Top-level meeting or no meeting, what happened was a disgrace.
As I’ve previously
detailed, the United States offered Iran:
Support for a new conference to promote dialogue and cooperation on regional security issues.
Improvement of Iran’s access to the international economy, markets, and capital, through practical support for full integration into international structures, including the World Trade Organization, and the creation of a framework for increased direct investment and trade.
Establishment of a long-term energy partnership between Iran and the European Union, among others.
Support for the modernization of Iran’s telecommunication infrastructure and advanced Internet service, including the lifting of American export restrictions.
High-tech cooperation.
Support for agricultural development in Iran, including possible access to American and European agricultural products, technology, and farm equipment.
Oh, and there was one other thing. Condi offered Iran cooperation in the field of civil aviation, including the removal of export restrictions which forbade American and European manufacturers from providing the mullahs with aircraft and spare parts.
You know why the last offer is worth mentioning?
Because, as would have been effortlessly predicted by anyone who has followed Iran for the last 30 years, when the mullahs looked at the Bush administration’s front-loaded, precondition-free offer, they laughed their heads off. They told us to take a $3- (now $4-) dollar-a-gallon hike.
So what did the Bush State Department do?
It gave Iran the civil-aviation assistance anyway. And it continued to sit down with the regime’s diplomats while the regime continued to build nukes, kill Americans, and dispatch Hezbollah to kill Israelis.
That is to say, we not only demanded no preconditions for negotiations; we persisted in patently futile negotiations even as they thumbed our eyes.
So I’m delighted to hear President Bush has determined, as he told the Israeli Knesset last week, that it is irrational to “negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along.” I’m just wondering why he hasn’t clued his State Department in on this obvious truth.
Just like I’m wondering why Sen. John McCain hasn’t objected to the administration’s precondition-free negotiations with the jihad’s string-pullers.
And why Sen. Barack Obama feels like he has to lie about what he said rather than argue that it’s not all that more delusional than the farce in which we’ve been engaged for several years running.
— Andrew C. McCarthy is author of Willful Blindness: Memoir of the Jihad and director of the Center for Law and Counterterrorism at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.< Back 1 2 
