perfidy

Michael Ledeen of the National Review has a good one up on the Iranian situation.

The behavior of our State Department has been suspect for the duration of the War on Terror. Deputy Assistant Undersecretaries, lackies, underlings and minions have consistently undermined the effort to fight, or even to mildly castigate terrorists and the state sponsors thereof.

That these ... individuals... would leak these stories in an effort to deter communication with the very people who are resisting the monstrous Iranian government so that careerist State department employees can continue their dialog with the leaders of the "Iranian Democracy" is abhorrent. We need a State Department that supports the war on terror, and moreover is capable of discriminating between a democracy and a fundamentalist islamic totalitarian state.

While President Bush has been relatively outspoken in support for the people of Iran, the rest of the government needs to get on board. As I have said here before, you can predict how much the people of a dictatorial country like America by how we deal with that country's leadership. Standing on principle has real, pragmatic benefits.

On a related note, Trent Telenko had an article. a little while back on what he perceives as the beginning of a campaign against Saudi Arabia. As it happens I agree, not to suck up to much. I've talked about this before, though not with quite the depth on SA that Trent gets into.