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The Obama administration's Iran policy in recent weeks has had a certain schizophrenic quality to it.

On the one hand, President Obama has played the role of cajoler in chief, stating last week that the door remains open to a deal with Tehran. On the other hand, Secretary of State Clinton has emerged as the administration's resident hardliner, calling the regime in Tehran a "military dictatorship" and throwing caution (and the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate on Iran) to the wind by referring to Iran's "nuclear weapons military program,"as if such a program was still ongoing. These are the sort of statements that Bush administration officials would have been crucified for by the press (with assistance from the U.S. intelligence community) in the wake of Iraq and the 2007 NIE.

While it is infuriating that this administration is being held to a different standard than the last, Secretary Clinton's statements have the added value of being correct. The latest evidence of this is the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report about Iran's nuclear program, which was released on Thursday. It is the first report issued by Director General Yukiya Amano, who replaced Iran ally Mohammed ElBaradei late last year. The report, the strongest since the IAEA began issuing such reports about Ir... >>>