Perhaps Ahmadinejad Should Hire Pat Buchanan as a Presidential Advisor

I have read Pat Buchanan's latest column and had to do everything in my power to keep from bursting out with laughter.

In the article, Buchanan praises the Obama Administration's policy in Iran and argues that an Israeli strike in Iran would "destroy a policy that is visibly succeeding."

And what policy is that you might ask?

Buchanan replies, "America's policy of patience is working."

More like sitting on its hands. The Obama Administration seeks engagement with Iran not patience. Indeed, it was President Obama who said we must not "meddle" in Iran's affairs. But with Iran crumbling at the seams it would be foolish for the Obama Administration to pursue engagement at this time. Yet it doesn't want to take a harder line either. So they are staying quiet for now.

There are a lot of factors that have led to Iran's current state of affairs but the Obama Administration's policy towards it isn't one of them.

Now, this doesn't preclude a debate on whether Israel should strike Iran. There are legitimate arguments to be made against Israel carrying out such a strike. But we should not pretend that Iran's regime, however unstable, doesn't have bad intentions towards Israel. However, Buchanan seems to think otherwise:

There is no evidence Iran has built the cascade to raise LEU (low enriched uranium) to highly enriched weapons-grade uranium, or that the facilities even exist to do this. The Iranian regime has declared it has no intention of building nuclear weapons, indeed, that their possession would be a violation of Koranic law.

So Buchanan declares there's no Iranian nuclear weapons program because the mullahs say so. It is astonishing, yet not altogether surprising, that Buchanan would accept the word of Iran's leaders who declared Ahmadinejad the winner in last month's "election" at face value. If building a nuclear weapons program is against Koranic law then surely arresting protesters and beating them to death is also against Koranic law. But such an argument would never have occurred to Buchanan.

In arguing against an Israeli strike on Iran, Buchanan writes, "Iran is even more pleased with the Shia regime we brought to power in Baghdad than we are."

Um, this is the same Pat Buchanan would six years ago argued the War in Iraq was Israel's war.

So is Buchanan now saying the War in Iraq is Iran's war? If so then he cannot have it both ways.

Finally, here's what he writes about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:

Ahmadinejad is not so tough a customer as Stalin, Khrushchev or Mao, who talked of accepting 300 million dead in a nuclear exchange. Moreover, Ahmadinejad has no nukes, no authority to take Iran to war, and is looking like a very lame duck before his second term has begun.

Perhaps Ahmadinejad should hire Pat Buchanan as a presidential advisor.