Interesting faith they have over there in Iran. It doesn't seem too concerned about support for the likes of Hezbollah, nor does it bat an eyelash at selling nuclear components to Bowl Cut Jr., and hostage-taking? Why not?
But having a nuke! Oh, they won't do that. Their faith. Come on, man. Barack Obama certainly understands that no one will do anything having first pronounced it contrary to his faith.
Oh wait . . .
This is what it's come to for America and it's dealing with the mad mullahs. You could even argue that Obama isn't naive enough to believe them. I say that may well be true but it's beside the point. Obama of all people understands the impulse to BS about "faith" in order to achieve a political objective. But Obama has an objective too, which is to get a deal for the sake of getting a deal, so he actually stands there in the public eye and says stuff like this:
Now I'll grant you that there are a couple of ways you can hear this comment. One is to think that he's actually calling them out on their nonsense by saying, OK bud, if that's what you believe then you should have no trouble making this deal. But to view it that way, you have to forget the folly of pursuing these negotiations in the first place. The U.S. did not need to give Iran the opportunity to negotiate terms. Our stance going in was that this was a rogue regime and it was not going to have nukes, period. If it tried, we would take action.
The problem with that, of course, was that we said it but we didn't really mean it - and you have to figure the mad mullahs knew that too. American leadership has a huge problem these days with making pronouncements it has no intention of backing up - and no president has ever been more guilty of it than Obama, who we all know by now will say absolutely anything to get himself through a moment, to win a news cycle or to persuade low-information voters.
So when he cites the claim of the "supreme leader" about the Iranians' faith - even skeptically - he is still taking Iran way too seriously as a reliable negotiating partner. You can't make a deal with anyone who is fundamentally untrustworthy, and in talks between the Obama Administration and the mad mullahs of Iran, you've got that problem on both sides of the table. Which is why no one should view any sort of deal that's announced as relevant in any way to the way history is likely to evolve when it comes to Iran and nukes.
