Thursday, January 21, 2016

My Nuance Deficiency Continues

Let me show you my shocked face.



Because after the success of getting Iran to release Americans that the Iranians were holding hostage, Iran's proxies in Iraq restocked the hostage supply:

Three U.S. citizens who disappeared last week in Baghdad were kidnapped and are being held by an Iranian-backed Shi'ite militia, two Iraqi intelligence and two U.S. government sources said on Tuesday.

Huh.

As Iraq's prime minister--no doubt feeling the pressure from Iran--says, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!

Asked at the start of a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Davos if he thought there was an Iranian link to their disappearance, Abadi said: "I doubt it very much. We don't know if they have been kidnapped ... They just went missing."

Well, perhaps it was really a rescue mission from great peril that we owe Iran a proclamation of gratitude for, eh?



It is increasingly clear that the Obama administration's plan to bring Iran into the community of nations relies not on getting Iran to behave better but by defining what is acceptable down to what Iran is already doing.

And this pursuit of the Holy Grail of mullah-run Iran reset is called "smart diplomacy."

UPDATE: The Taliban naturally expect that their behavior can be normalized rather than normalizing their murderous behavior:

Afghanistan’s Taliban want to be removed from a U.N. blacklist before considering rejoining peace talks aimed at ending a 15-year civil war, a senior member said, as its political wing met activists at an unofficial forum in Qatar.

Why wouldn't we give in on this? Did our chief diplomat get a spine transplant recently?