The Wages Of Appeasement: Contempt From Russia And Iran

◼ (T)he bin Laden case was no policy test. No serious person of either party ever suggested negotiation or concession - CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER at IBD

Obama imagined his silver tongue and exquisite sensitivity to Islam would persuade the mullahs to give up their weapons program. Amazingly, they resisted his charms, choosing instead to become a nuclear power. The talks did nothing but confer legitimacy on the regime at its point of maximum vulnerability — and savagery.

For his exertions, Obama earned (a) continued lethal Iranian assistance to guerrillas killing Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan, (b) a plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador by blowing up a Washington restaurant, (c) the announcement just this week by a member of parliament of Iranian naval exercises to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, (d) undoubted Chinese and Russian access to a captured U.S. drone for the copying and countering of its high-tech secrets.

How did Obama answer? He politely asked Monday for the drone back.

On Tuesday, with Putin-like contempt, Iran demanded that Obama apologize instead. "Obama begs Iran to give him back his toy plane," reveled the semiofficial Fars News Agency.