President Obama yesterday uttered words about Iran we know come from the heart: “What we want to do is give diplomacy a chance, and give peace a chance.”

The leaders of Iran didn’t go to Columbia in the early 1980’s and didn’t dabble in the arms control movement. Ayatollah Khamenei and President Rouhani had different formative experiences, ones that involved using arms, not trying to control them. They hanged political opponents by their necks from cranes, built a terrorist organization in Lebanon that murdered and abducted Americans, fought a war with Iraq, and carried out assassinations in Europe against regime opponents and bombings in Argentina against Jews. Obama wants to give peace a chance; the Iranians are giving victory a chance.