Clinton to Iran: 'Have Your Yellow-Cake and Eat it Too…'

An October 26th headline of BBC Persian read, “آ …ریکا: …ساله …ا نیروگاه بوشهر نیست” This translates to “America: The Bushehr plant is not our problem.” Now the headlines on the BBC English site were much less harsh than that, and similarly CNN’s headline, “Iran begins loading fuel into core of its first nuclear plant” was also dry in comparison.

Hillary Clinton was quoted as saying, “Our problem is not with their reactor at Bushehr, our problem is with their facilities at places like Natanz and their secret facility at Qom and other places where we believe they are conducting their weapons program,” and that, “Iran has the right to have a peaceful energy program.”

Although even if energy production is a right, a peaceful program must be a transparent program, and a transparent program does not include internal uranium enrichment hidden in the mountains of Natanz. Although she does site Natanz as being a potential problem, her statement of accepting any program is a major reversal of years of American policy. Capitulating on a peaceful program, before we can thoroughly verify that Iran is not actively pursuing a weapons program is allowing Iran to have their cake and eat it too… yellow cake that is.

This verbal capitulation of the Administration is paramount to the US handing Iran the carrot, domestic energy production, without setting up the diplomatic trap. Clinton is not doing her job and is proving that soft power, when not backed up by strength, is not power at all.