Today, the Times led its editorial page with a meditation on what President Obama must do about Iran and its nuclear ambitions. The Times‘s editorialists acknowledge that Tehran is moving closer to nuclear capability and are even fair-minded enough to admit that last week’s satellite launch showed that their ability to deliver a nuclear weapon is also “moving ahead.”

Their recipe for diplomatic success? “It is time to test their intentions on all fronts.” In other words: Make nice. Cooperate with Europe. Try to tempt them by involving them in the discussions about Iraq and Afghanistan.

In defense of a push for appeasement of Iran, which it claims is the only way forward, the newspaper says, “we have seen the results of the Bush administrations’ refusal to engage” with Iran.

But there is a fundamental problem with the Times‘s analysis: the Bush administration already tried all of this. To his discredit, President Bush spent most of his time in office outsourcing the Iranian problem to our European allies. Far from the confrontational “cowboy” that is the caricature of American foreign policy in those years, Bush was a consistent multilateralist on Iran. What did this accomplish? Nothing.

Iran laughed at Europe’s half-hearted diplomacy on the nuclear issue because they knew that even though their nuclear plans posed an existential threat to Israel as well as to the West, their off-and-on business partners in France and Germany were never serious about sanctions. The record of the Bush years is testimony to the bankruptcy of multilateralist diplomacy on this issue.

If that weren’t enough appeasement to Iran for the Times‘s readers, they could also turn to the oped page opposite the editorial for even worse stuff. Roger Cohen’s column on how to make Iran more moderate is a model of incoherence.

He leads with a great truth: “What Iran fears most is a Gorbachev figure, somebody from within the regime who in the name of compromise with the West ends up selling out the revolution and destroying its edifice.”

Tyrannical regimes fall only when the tyrants loosen their grip on the reins of power, as Gorbachev illustrated. But the column goes on to point out that no such figure, including former president Mohammed Khatami who may oppose Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in this year’s presidential election, actually exists.

For Cohen, even Vice President Joe Biden’s mild scolding of Iran in which he warns them, “[c]ontinue down your current course and there will be pressure and isolation” was “dead wrong.” If we can’t tell them that, then what can we say to them?

To this way of thinking, everything short of Obama throwing a party at the White House to celebrate the not-so-glorious 30th anniversary of the Islamists’ overthrow of the Shah is dangerous brinkmanship.

If Obama listens to such nonsense, and judging by his initial “outreach” to the Muslim world, he might, then we may as well assume that before long we’ll be reading Times editorials about why Tehran’s nukes — which Obama will do nothing to stop from being developed — are really nothing to worry about.