Obama Administration Still Wants to Talk to Iran

President Obama's Chief of Staff David Axelrod and U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice insists talks with Iran are still on despite all the violence Iran is perpetuating against its people in the aftermath of its "election."

Both Axelrod and Rice have dismissed Ahmadinejad's recent condemnations of the U.S. claiming that foreign policy power does not lie with him.

Rice said, "Something extraordinary has happened of late in Iran, and the popular discontent, the incredible diversity of the coalition that has come together to demand change, from women to the elderly to youth, the very religious to the more secular, has been quite extraordinary."

Axelrod said, "Let's be clear that we didn't meddle in the election in Iran. The dispute in Iran is between the leadership in Iran and their own people, and plainly, Mr. Ahmadinejad thinks that by fingering the United States, that he can create a political diversion. So I'm not going to entertain his bloviations that are politically motivated."

What makes Rice and Axelrod think Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is any more amenable to reason than Ahmadinejad? He has been behind Ahmadinejad all the way. When Khamenei pronounced judgment on the Iranian "elections" his audience chanted "Death to America." Does Axelrod consider those "bloviations"?

Susan Rice is correct when she says something extraordinary has happened in Iran. Its leaders are willing to kill their people over it.

If Axelrod and Rice still think Khamenei is amenable to reason concerning its nuclear program it demonstrates to me the Obama Administration is going to pursue engagement with Iran at any cost.