Ben Smith links to an interview with Flynt Leverett, former National Security Council staff member and an Obama supporter. Says Leverett: "The fact is: Ahmadinejad won."
It's worth remembering the rather extraordinary opinion piece that Leverett, together with his wife, Hillary Mann Leverett, co-authored three weeks ago. The Leveretts argued that Obama's Iran policy had likely already "failed" because, well, Obama had been far too tough on the Iranian regime.
They praised Obama for his language in a New Year's message to "the people and leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran," in which Obama sought "to assuage Iranian skepticism about America's willingness to end efforts to topple the regime and pursue comprehensive diplomacy."
Since then, they argued, things have gone sour. The Obama administration, with prominent Iran hawks like Hillary Clinton and Dennis Ross in important roles, has been far too confrontational. Most egregiously, Obama "has done nothing to cancel or repudiate an ostensibly covert but well-publicized program, begun in President George W. Bush's second term, to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to destabilize the Islamic Republic."
Right. Wouldn't want to destabilize the world's foremost state sponsor of terror -- a regime threatening the extinction of a key ally, racing ahead on nuclear weapons, and directly responsible for the death of Americans in Iraq.
Elsewhere, the Leveretts argued that the imprisonment of journalist Roxana Saberi was simply Iran's reaction to concerns about regime change. In describing the U.S. posture toward Iran, they called wrote of "the perceived threat from Iran." They also argued that Ayatollah Khameni's complaints about America in Iraq were driven by "legitimate concern about American intentions." (It's worth pausing here to recall what former CIA Director Mike Hayden said a year ago: "It is the policy of the Iranian government, approved to the highest levels of that government, to facilitate the killing of Americans in Iraq.")
That's important context for Leverett's argument now -- in the face of widespread and convincing claims that the election was fraudulent -- that Ahmadinejad really won.
Even now, in his interview with Der Spiegel, Leverett is -- what's the word for it -- forgiving of Ahmadinejad's rhetoric and actions. Leverett says Ahmadinejad "is even prepared for a dialogue with Washington under the right circumstances, as he stated earlier."
That's interesting: Obama, who has reiterated his willingness to negotiate without preconditions is being too hawkish on Iran, and Ahmadinejad, who has said he will only participate in such a dialogue under the circumstances he chooses, is the reasonable one?
