Michael Gerson, unlike the Obami, concedes that our Iran-engagement policy is in a shambles: the regime has consolidated power, its nuclear program is going full steam ahead, and we have been shown to be very foolish: “Obama’s policy of setting deadlines for cooperation that are violated with impunity, and continually extending the hand of engagement after it is slapped again and again, is both weak and irrelevant.” Gerson suggests that some regime change is in order and that it would be wise to now aid the democracy advocates — after having defunded them. He calls it an “untried option.” Actually, it was a rejected option, at the moment at which it might have done some good. When many were calling on the president to lend a hand to the protesters, Obama went mute and turned up the groveling. Gerson holds out hope that:

Obama could try the strategy the Iranian regime most fears: supporting, overtly and covertly, the democratic resistance against military rule. Not out of idealism, but realism. It would be a source of leverage on the Iranian regime, at a time when American leverage is limited. And it might hasten the return of civilian control in Iran, so that America would actually have a negotiating partner.

Well, he could, but he shows no interest in doing so, and frankly it’s a little late now. Obama has already bestowed legitimacy on a regime that, as Gerson points out, the Revolutionary Guard now dominates. (“But in reaction to mass protests after the fraudulent presidential election in June, the Guard’s control has expanded comprehensively. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei recently reorganized Iran’s intelligence services to give the Guard the lead role — clearly fearful that the regular intelligence agencies were unreliable. The Guard has assumed greater power over Iranian media.”) Gerson is right that regime change is smart policy. Unfortunately, our president didn’t realize that when it might have had the greatest impact.