Iran, Obama and The Tooth Fairy

US President Obama and Russia's PM Medvedev
 (AP/Charles Dharapak)

There's just too much wishful thinking and make believe going on in the world of "international diplomacy," security etc.  The United States President Barack Hussein Obama, "leader of the free world," sic, has been using outdated child psychology with Iran to convince it to reduce, not totally stop, its nuclear development.

“And our hope is that we can resolve this issue in a peaceful fashion that respects Iran’s sovereignty and its rights in the international community, but also recognizes its responsibilities,” Obama added.
Iran had “the right to peaceful nuclear power,” he said, but had failed to convince the international community that it was not seeking a nuclear weapons capability...

I have no doubt that Obama really believes that somehow he and his allies can "peacefully convince" Iran to change its stripes.  That is really frightening.  The USA has a President who believes in the Tooth Fairy. 

Israel's Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu came out with this statement:

PM Netanyahu Comments on Baghdad Talks
(Communicated by the Prime Minister's Media Adviser)
Following are remarks that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made about the Baghdad talks, earlier today (Friday), 18.5.12, at a press availability in Prague:
"Obviously, nothing would be better than to see this issue resolved diplomatically. But I have seen no evidence that Iran is serious about stopping its nuclear weapons program. It looks as though they see these talks as another opportunity to deceive and delay just like North Korea did for years.
They may try to go from meeting to meeting with empty promises. They may agree to something in principle but not implement it. They might even agree to implement something that does not materially derail their nuclear weapons program.
Iran is good at playing this chess game. They know that sometimes you have to sacrifice a pawn to save the king. The goal of these negotiations should be very clear:
Freeze all enrichment inside Iran.
Remove all enriched material outside of Iran.
And dismantle Qom.
When this goal is achieved, I will be the first to applaud. Until then, count me among the skeptics."

Netanyahu seems much more grounded in reality than Obama.

Another interesting article about Iran is by Ruthie Blum in Israel Hayom.  She reports about a conference she attended in  Italy and the meetings she had with Iranians there:

Regarding Iran, the prognosis was even bleaker. Author and Iran expert Michael Ledeen, from the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, expressed disgust at the fact that no American administration since that of Jimmy Carter — whose presidency saw the ouster of the Shah and the ushering in of the Islamic revolution more than 30 years ago — has done anything to assist the Iranian people to rid themselves of their jihadist regime. He pointed out that no more intelligence-gathering is needed, nor any bits of information lacking about Iran’s nuclear program and intentions. The only question that remains, Ledeen asserted, is what the West should do about it. Bombing the facilities, he argued, would be of no use without taking down President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the mullahs. As someone who is convinced there is still time to accomplish this, and that it wouldn’t take much effort, his frustration is that much greater.
Much of what he said was echoed by Saba Farzan, an expat Iranian now living in Germany and a senior fellow on women’s rights at the Institute for Middle Eastern Democracy. What Farzan did was give a glimpse into the psyche of her former countrymen. Iranians are willing to put up with a lot of suffering, she asserted, if the end result is regime change. She claimed that the sanctions have been hurting them, and that the tougher the sanctions the better.
She also clarified to me in private that a military strike would not cause the Iranian people to rally around the regime, as some experts have been arguing. On the contrary, she said, it is the regime they hate. Therefore, a military strike without regime change would not solve the problem...
The Iranian regime, as everyone at the conference concurred, is behind radical movements all over the world. It would not need to use its nukes, once it acquired them, to do great harm to the rest of us — even without keeping its promise to “wipe Israel off the map.”
Instead of devoting all energy to that issue, the United States and Europe are going to engage in yet another pathetic and pointless summit — this one in Baghdad on May 23 — to negotiate a non-existent deal with a representative of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Meanwhile, as the mullahs and their mad scientists work tirelessly to perfect nuclear warheads, and as the rest of the Middle East is in the midst of internal Islamic takeovers, Time magazine has devoted this week’s cover story to Israel’s prime minister.

I highly suggest that you read her entire article. Ruthie Blum makes more sense than op-ed's you'll find in the New York Times, Jerusalem Post and other media.