I’m a bit late getting to the recent article by Christopher Hitchens in the Wall Street Journal. You know, the one in which he reveals his long-awaited Iran strategy. In brief, he says that, since Iran may have a devastating earthquake in the near future (quite true), we should offer emergency help, and deploy the Navy in order to provide it. But this help would be conditional on total Iranian transparency regarding their nuclear program. They would have to permit us thorough inspection. Moreover, we’d need evidence that the Iranian regime truly represents the Iranian people (which it doesn’t).

It’s hard to know if this is a deliberate or accidental spoof, but it is truly funny. He sums up the Master Plan with these boffo lines.

“In the same speech it ought to be said that the U.S. and its allies — committed as they are to assisting Iran to acquire a peaceful nuclear energy capability, and alarmed as they are by signs of a deceptive strategy in this regard — would like to be sure that our negotiating partners truly represent the Iranian people. It could even be said that our intervention in Iraq, and the consequent liberation of the Shiites, will prove to have long-term positive consequences.”

As if the mullahs had interest in the well being of the Iranian people. As if they were willing to give up power and enable us to expose their nuclear secrets merely to save Tehran from an earthquake (or, for that matter, a bombing raid). As if we weren’t already negotiating with the mullahs and offering all manner of inducements.

I’m worried about Hitchens. Has his abandonment of nicotine addled the mind?