The Blog

Rigid Ideologues

10:57 AM, Jun 29, 2009 • By MICHAEL GOLDFARB
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Rice and Axelrod make clear their intention to stay the course:

The legitimacy of the government, while questioned by the people of Iran, is not the critical issue for the U.S. goal of preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapons capability, Rice said.

"It's in the United States' national interest to make sure that we have employed all elements at our disposal, including diplomacy, to prevent Iran from achieving that nuclear capacity," she said.

Both Rice and David Axelrod, Obama's top adviser, said Ahmadinejad doesn't appear to have the final say over Iran's foreign policy. Axelrod, dismissing Ahmadinejad's harsh language against the U.S. and Obama as "bloviations," said being open to talks with Iran is not an effort to reward the country.

"We are looking to ... sit down and talk to the Iranians and offer them two paths. And one brings them back into the community of nations, and the other has some very stark consequences," Axelrod said.

It wasn't long ago that the "reality-based community" was criticizing the Bush administration for sticking to the same policy regardless of changing facts on the ground. I expected that this new administration, with its far more nuanced view of foreign affairs, would have some kind of shift in rhetoric, would show its ability to adapt to fast changing conditions, in the wake of Tehran's violent crackdown on democracy activists. Even the Bush administration used carrots in tandem with the stick, and in different proportions depending on the behavior and response of the regime in Tehran. This administration only has one gear.

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