Still Pretending?

The title of Joseph Farah's column today is "Iran: No more playing pretend":

The West chose the latter course of action. It decided to play pretend.

Now some of those same officials are 'shocked' to learn that Iran, under the leadership of Ahmadinejad, has captured 15 British seamen in Iraqi waters, refusing to release them and abusing them in ways similar to the way those American hostages were abused in 1979 and 1980.

This is the way appeasement works.

It seems to make it easier to deal with problems immediately, but it compounds problems and makes them more difficult to resolve later.

Did we expect the tiger to change its stripes?

Did we expect to discourage future hostage-taking by pretending someone involved was not really involved?

Did we expect to prevent a repeat of history by, in effect, pardoning the previous offense?

Did we expect, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had somehow reformed, become more responsible, renounced his past even while denying it?

It's hard for me to understand the impotence with which the West is dealing with this incident.

It's all too familiar to those of us who watched Jimmy Carter's Rose Garden strategy. For those of you too young to remember, the president said he would not leave the White House Rose Garden until the hostages were released. That, as I'm sure you can imagine, left the Ayatollah Khomeini and his young protégé Ahmadinejad quaking in their boots.

It wasn't until Ronald Reagan was sworn into office – the very day, in fact – that the Iranians finally released the hostages.

If Farah is saying that Iran is no longer pretending to be a civilized nation, I concur. But if Farah is saying we're no longer playing pretend, I think I disagree. Just yesterday I heard several quotes about how Britain--and even many in the US--still can't bring themselves to call the British sailors "hostages." Some among us are still denying reality.

But perhaps Farah is saying we need to stop playing pretend, then he's 100% correct!