One of the strangest things about the Iranian tragedy is this spate of mea culpa confessionals from columnists who for the last two years insisted that Bush’s decision not to talk to the thuggish Ahmadinejad — e.g., his sending terrorists into Lebanon to destroy democracy; trying to kill Americans in Iraq with lethal IEDs and assassinate Iraqi democrats; subsidies for rocketeers in Gaza; promising to exterminate Israel; violating U.N. non-proliferation accords; rounding up and eliminating journalists, minorities, and dissidents — was at best counterproductive, and at worst proof of his cowboyish know-nothingism.

Now they’ve had and gone through our callous realpolitik moment, in which we sat on the sidelines as thousands of brave reformers were silenced. Our administration worried that the internationalist Obama would not have his long-awaited chance to show his “this is our moment” post-nationalist stuff, in charming Ahmadinejad and a few theocrats to promise to kill and maim fewer people.

And as a result they seem to be “shocked” that 1) Iran is really not a democracy after all, and that, after 30 years, it still rigs elections, preselects candidates, and kills off opponents, confident that its thin veneer of voting fools Western elites; 2) does not much care whether we talk or not to its clerics, and whether we act nicely or badly toward them; 3) long ago figured that what little downside there was to getting the bomb was far outweighed by the upside (cf. the deference showed to Pakistan post-1998), and nothing was/is going to stop them.