Unless, of course, you are actually one of the trolls who used to come round here some time ago. From certain of your identifying characteristics (country of origin, etc.), I suspect that this might be the case.

This is neocon ethics indeed.

It’s rare, even within the liberal-left, to see cognitive dissonance displayed so openly. If Iran’s “current leadership” can’t gain “legitimacy” from negotiating agreements with the US, why offer to talk with the Great Satan at all? Because the offer is just a ploy, to stall for time, or to bait counteroffers that can then be contemptuously rejected? And why, then, would any Western leader want to play that game? Or, being “beyond naive”, let’s contemplate the possibility that the current leadership recognizes that their own hate-filled anti-American propaganda isn’t completely shared by their increasingly restive population (however much it resonates within the confines of the American left) — in which case the US acceptance of talks “without preconditions” might well be seen as a propaganda coup all by itself, though the “talks” themselves, of course, would just be empty exercises. Either way, Obama’s trumpeted willingness to engage in such obvious displays only underlines how gullible, vain, and potentially dangerous he is.

Iran is willing to negotiate.

There is nothing to negotiate. They engage in terrorism, and are building nuclear weapons to do so on an immense scale. That is unacceptable. Period.

Negotiation requires a legitimate issue, and good faith from the party with whom one is negotiating. Neither condition obtains here. Negotiating with Iran to stop supporting terrorism would be like negotiating with a mugger to stop mugging you.

It is beyond naive to think that Iran’s current leadership could gain legitimacy by making agreements with what it calls “The Great Satan.” Iran’s theocracy has seized and maintained power through subterfuge, coercion and outright force, not suasion. Its survival depends entirely on perpetual confrontation.

The Iranian government survives by claiming that such measures, including censorship, military spending and the outlawing or dissent are necessary, given the threat of a U.S. invasion.

Increasing that threat, then, only increases the Iranian regime’s ability to claim legitimacy.

Or perhaps — since even he is likely to understand the tactical uses of non-negotiation under various circumstances — it just illustrates his opportunism, his dangerous willingness to exploit both the childish credulity and the vacuous Bush-derangement of his lefty associates and allies. (It’s also telling, by the way, that his lefty apologists always refer to the tactical refusal to negotiate as a “fear”, since one of their most persistent psychological traits is projection.)