Mahmoud the Marginal

Michael Crowley asks:

How long is Obama willing to give the Iranians to demonstrate a good-faith negotiating posture before he starts turning the sanctions screws on them? I think we're probably still a few months and some complex maneuvering away. Even if Obama is skeptical about the prospects for talks (and I suspect he is), his team believes it's critical that the international community perceive the US to have made a good-faith negotiating effort of its own. Even if Khameinei and Ahmadinejad are giving America the finger, an important kabuki dance remains.

True, however, it's important to remember that Iran is very good at this kabuki dance -- they've been doing it for years, to the consternation of several American presidents. It's becoming more and more apparent that Ahmadinejad is now Khamenei's pit bull; his preferred face of the regime.

And if that's the case, than President Obama should end the traditional charade of engaging the Iranian president. This policy ultimately thwarted and perplexed the Clinton administration's Iran efforts, and gave President George W. Bush a convenient, and ultimately futile, bogeyman in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

If Obama does nothing else regarding Iran during his first term, at the very least, he could pull away the guarded curtain of Iran's Oz: Ali Khamenei. The young Iranians in green started this process, and President Obama could quite possibly finish the job. The best way for Obama to passively dispute the election results in Iran would be to entirely ignore the regime's preferred fall guy. By allowing Ahmadinejad to make a fool of himself on the world stage, Khamenei reserves the ability to "balance" him off of other internal factions, and publicly "rebuke" him if necessary, in order to win favor with the right critics.

Obama should insist on talking with the country's true power brokers, and disregard the court jester completely.

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