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By Greg Pierce

GET REAL

"For a president who came into office literally selling the Audacity of Hope - not just for Americans but for all mankind - his Iran policy can so far be summed up as the timidity of 'realism.' That's realism as a theory of international relations that prescribes a foreign policy based on ostensibly rational calculations of the national interest and assumes that other nations act in similarly rational fashion," Wall Street Journal columnist Bret Stephens writes.

"On this reasoning, it remains the American interest to reach a negotiated settlement with Tehran over its nuclear program, whether or not [President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad was fairly elected. Likewise, it is in Tehran's best interests to settle, assuming the benefits for doing so are sufficiently large," Mr. Stephens said.

"If this view ever had its moment, it was in the months immediately after Mr. Obama's inauguration. The administration came to town thinking that America's problems with Iran were largely self-inflicted - a combination of 'Axis of Evil' and 'regime change' rhetoric, an invasion that gave Iran a reasonable motive for wanting to arm itself with nuclear weapons, and an unwillingness to try to settle differences in face-to-face talks.

"In other words, Mr. Obama seems to have thought that a considerable part of America's Iran problem was simply an America problem, to be addressed by various forms of conciliation: Mr. Obama's New Year's greetings to 'the Islamic Republic of Iran'; the disavowal of regime change as a U.S. objective; the offer of direct talks without preconditions; withdrawal from Iraq; the insistence, following the election, that the U.S. would neither presume to judge the outcome, nor otherwise 'meddle' in an internal Iranian affair.

"What did all this achieve? Iran's nuclear programs are accelerating. It is testing ballistic missiles of increasing range and sophistication. Its support for terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah is unabated. Ahmadinejad stole an election in broad daylight. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei blessed the result. British Embassy staff are under siege. A campaign of mass arrests and intimidation is under way and a young woman named Neda Soltan was shot in the heart simply for choosing none of the above.

"Oh, and Iran still accuses the U.S. of 'meddling.'

"Now Mr. Obama is promising more of the same, plus the equivalent of a group hug for the demonstrators. Is this supposed to be 'realism'?"

TRASHING PALIN

"Lefty journalistTodd Purdum has a hit piece in the new Vanity Fair on Sarah Palin," William Kristol writes at www.weekly standard.com.