Get used to this tune on Iran from the Right

OPINION: "Will Obama Listen to Iran's Bloggers," by Bret Stephens, Wall Street Journal, 24 March 2009.

Get used to this sort of attack: if Obama starts anything with Iran, it will be derided for not solving every issue of note in the Middle East ("What? I thought if we made friends with Iran, then everything would go our way in the region!!!") and we'll be unceasingly reminded of every internal sin of the Iranian regime ("How can we make peace with Iran unless the case of [dissident X] is resolved!").

Such arguments are useless. Rapprochement with Iran won't make the regime acceptable overnight. It didn't do that for China or the Sovs way back when and it won't magically remake Iran any time soon.

But making perfection the standard is goofy. Grand strategy is about systematically improving your situation, not great leaps into fantasy outcomes that--if they can't be immediately achieved--rule out the utility of any effort whatsoever.

Stephens is a highly biased source on this subject. Nothing will make him happy as this thing moves forward.

Comments

[Javaid Akhtar]

I've read the odd 'in your hands' WSJ and found them quite good ...but Bret ...my oh my..I've read more informed/interesting opinions coming from the bottom of an empty beer glass.

[Christopher Plummer]

Like we say in the motion picture business: "Perfect is the enemy of good." and also "Done is good."