Idiotic sentence award

TigerHawk:

Admittedly, that sounds like the title of a goofy blog contest. If there were such a contest, surely the first sentence in today's lead editorial would be a candidate:

Before things get any more out of hand, President Bush needs to make his intentions toward Iran clear.

The last thing that our president should do -- right now, at least -- is "make his intentions toward Iran clear." As I have written before, in the confrontation between Iran, on the one hand, and its geopolitical adversaries, on the other, both sides correctly believe that uncertainty is their friend. Indeed, Iran has deliberately manufactured uncertainty -- about the pace and stage of its nuclear program, for example -- precisely because it knows that it will get a better deal from the West if we don't know what is going on than if we do. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad seems to revel in this. See, for example, his unwillingness even to deny that Iran is supplying weapons to Shiite militias in Iraq. Instead he demands "proof."

Well, it would be equally silly for the United States, Israel, or any other threatened power to reveal either its intentions or its menu of options for confronting Iran. We would be weakening our own position in the negotiations with Iran. What negotiations, you ask? They are going on all the time, even if they do not involve direct discussions in a five-star hotel with press conferences before and after.

...

The problem with the NY Times is that they do not really see Iran as an adversary. They view the dispute the same way they view marital discord that needs more open communication. But even in marriage therapy that does not work if one of the parties is a homicidal maniac. The Times wants to treat bad regimes like they are just another person on Ophra's couch.