Richard Perle gives Barack Obama partial credit

Obama calls Bush’s Iran policy a failure, and Richard Perle agrees. But Perle gives Obama only partial credit, because Bush’s failure in Iran is a consequence of multilateralism, which Obama wants even more of.
Most often, “multilateral” has referred to policies that were either established in multilateral agreements or blessed by the United Nations, our European allies or both. Left implicit among those preaching multilateralism was the idea that a multilateral solution was always available, if only the administration had been willing to adopt it. It has often been said, wrongly, that the Bush administration opposed working with allies and preferred to go it alone. But a preference for going it alone never was the problem.
The problem, rather, is a dangerous confusion between ends and means, and it is a confusion shared by Condi Rice and Barack Obama. Coalitions, even successful multilateral ones, are instruments, tools, means to an end. They are important and useful, sometimes essential, but they are not, and must not be seen as, ends in themselves. Confusion on this point can lead to claims of success when failure is staring you in the face.

How else should we judge progress as we seek to end Iran’s drive for nuclear weapons and its support for terrorism? We have a multilateral coalition. It is “united.” But it has not, and almost certainly will not, do the thing for which it has arduously been put together.

Obama has set a track record for duplicity and opportunism that already has left Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton in the dust. So perhaps he will dump his attachment to multilateralism, and actually do something serious about Iran. Then again, since he is all show, he may very well do nothing except offer some money to Iranians to pretend they are not building nukes, and proclaim peace is at hand while Iranian nukes are flying toward Tel Aviv.