DID THE BLEAT OF THE LAMB EXCITE THE LION? Re: Iran

Appeasement has its costs.

Excerpt: But why did the hardliners triumph? Richman argues that their victory was the predictable result of Obama's soft-line policy. In fact, this result was predicted by Bill Kristol. Though Kristol is probably no "expert" by Clinton's reckoning, he did say this in 2006:

One of the bad side effects of our looking weak and hesitant is that in the last year Ahmadinejad's been running around provoking everyone, behaving like a madman, thumbing his nose at the U.S. and the West -- and he pays no price. And if one were an opponent of Admadinejad in Iran -- not a dissident, but someone in government who is kind of a more cautious type, and you've been warning, "gee, this will get us in trouble" -- and [Admadinejad] gets in no trouble at all -- it's very bad for the internal dynamics in Iran. I think we have inadvertently helped to strengthen [hardliners] in Iran by not responding vigorously.

This seems like a better explanation of the rise of the hardliners than Clinton's which is, what, bad luck?

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