by Ali Gharib

As a short follow up to Daniel’s post yesterday on Krauthammer’s Projections, I wanted to quickly mention that the neocons are not only projecting their wants and desires for the Middle East onto Iranians, but also onto President Obama.

On Thursday, the neoconservative editorial board of the Wall Street Journal went so far as to indirectly suggest, by using an anonymous quote from an administration official, that Obama actually wants the crisis in Iran to end swiftly with an Ahmadinejad victory:

His foreign policy gurus drew up an agenda defined mainly in opposition to the perceived Bush legacy: The U.S. will sit down with the likes of Iran, North Korea or Russia and hash out deals. In a Journal story on Monday, a senior U.S. official bordered on enthusiastic about confirming an Ahmadinejad victory as soon as possible. “Had there been a transition to a new government, a new president wouldn’t have emerged until August. In some respects, this might allow Iran to engage the international community quicker.” The popular uprising in Iran is so inconvenient to this agenda.

It’s shocking enough to make such a suggestion, but all the more shocking considering that it is the ideological comrades of the WSJ editorial board who, ahead of the election, explicitly expressed support for an Ahmadinejad victory (cf. Daniel’s post on Neocons for Ahmadinejad).