It’s been a while since we last checked in on Iran, so here are four stories that caught my attention in the past few days:

1.  Iranian Opposition Apologizes for That Whole Hostage Thing – The opposition groups that were at the heart of the flap over the elections a few months ago have issued an apology to the US government for the Iranian hostage situation 30 years ago.

“Thirty years ago in the turmoil of the revolutionary zeal an indefensible act of hostage taking was committed that the new generation of Iran are not proud of at all,” he said. “We know very well how that deplorable action hurt the noble American people and how it led to three decades of unnecessary and painful bad relations between our two nations.

“Only a small and repressive minority who rule Iran today still insist on keeping Iran on a confrontation course with the US, Britain and the West and indeed they have now taken the Iranian people as hostage to their destructive policies.”

2.  In a related story, during protests on the 3oth anniversary of the hostage taking, an Iranian crowd is heard chanting “Obama, Obama, Are you with the regime or with us?” I think we all know the answer to that:

The answer to that question is of course obvious to Americans. Interesting, because they’re explicitly mentioning Obama, not “America” or “USA”. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say this distinction is probably significant, and they understand that most Americans are pretty supportive of their desire to ditch the Mullocracy and the bad crazy leadership…Obama? well, not so much. He’s stiff armed them once already, and seems perfectly willing to allow the regime to strengthen its hand even more with nuclear weapons.

3.  As the opposition reaches out to the US, the group in charge smuggles weapons to Syria and Hezbollah.  Fortunately they were intercepted by Israel.  This time.

The weapons seized on the ship included some 3,000 rockets of various types, as well as 60-millimeter mortars, 7.62-rifle Kalashnikov-ammunition, F-1 grenades and 122-millimeter Katyusha rockets. The ship’s cache was reportedly ten times the size that of the Karine A’s that Israel seized in 2002.

4.  And finally, Iran’s leader says negotiating with the US would be “perverted.”

Iran’s supreme leader, spurning what he described as several personal overtures from President Obama, warned Tuesday that negotiating with the United States would be “naive and perverted” and that Iranian politicians should not be “deceived” into starting such talks.

None of this should be surprising to anyone who has been paying attention, but that doesn’t make it any less destructive.

Since taking office, President Obama has repeatedly tried to reach out to the corrupt power in Iran.  When he had a chance to get behind an opposition group that could effect real change in the region, he voted ‘present’.

Now the Iranian leaders are openly mocking him.

Even the most casual reader of history could have predicted how this would all play out.  Which makes me wonder why our President, who I’m repeatedly told is a genius, wasn’t smart enough to see this coming.