Washington Times editor Barbara Slavin writes to Steve Clemons:
Clemons concurs without hesitation. It’s ironic then that Obama became the first American president to say otherwise just three months ago when he taped a new year’s message to “the people and leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” He referred to the country twice as an “Islamic Republic.” It was jarring for many to hear a U.S. president refer to the Iranian regime by its formal name. Kristol wrote in the pages of this magazine that in doing so President Obama was “kowtowing to a regime that is anything but republican, implicitly forswearing any plan–any hope–of regime change to free the Iranian people.” Indeed, this administration had no plan or hope of regime change, but suddenly it is faced with the very real possibility that the regime will fall. And yet President Obama is still stubbornly clinging to a policy of engagement and normalization even as State Department officials privately concede that the “chances for meaningful engagement with Khamenei regime have been set back considerably.” So will Obama continue to refer to Iran as an Islamic Republic? Will he continue to persist in a policy of engagement no matter the crimes committed by those who would sit on the other side of the table? Or will Obama seize the chance to be on the right side of history?
