No, you go first

The law of large numbers is simultaneously the most fortuitous phenomenon of statistical probability and the most threatening. Without the statistical inevitability inherent in a two-party system the Democrats may have never taken control of Congress; similarly, had Thomas Edison not tried, and tried again, he may never have discovered the brightest burning filament.\nIranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad truly embodies this sort of can-do attitude, the 50-year-old political leader of the Islamic Republic is about 0-for-8,205 when it comes to brilliant ideas. But like the “Little Engine That Could,” the certifiably psychotic despot has finally stumbled upon a preposterously radical position that everyone can support. According to The Associated Press reports, quoting a speech by Ahmadinejad, the Iranian government is willing to halt its uranium enrichment program on one condition: Western nations end their uranium enrichment programs first. “Justice demands that those who want to hold talks with us shutdown their nuclear fuel cycle program too,” the Iranian president said, “then, we can hold dialogue under a fair atmosphere.”\nClever, don’t you think?\nThe new, probably meretricious, position came on the eve of a U.N.-mandated deadline to pause its nuclear program. The deadline was a part of Resolution 1737, ratified late last year by the Security Council, which imposed strict sanctions on Iran’s nuclear and missile programs; failure to heed the Feb. 21 deadline would result in even harsher sanctions. Well, in classic psychotic-despot style, Ahmadinejad ignored that Wednesday ever happened and let the offer expire, just as I did for this column. \nThe ball is back in West, so to speak, and it’s up to the U.N., the European Union, and the U.S. to negotiate the next level of economic sanctions. Unfortunately, strict economic sanctions can have unintended consequences. As often as not, innocent civilians lose access to food, water, oil and medicine because the government hoards what few resources are available. \nReaffirming conventional Cold War wisdom, the White House, not surprisingly, rejected Iran’s proposal. At the height of the arms race with the Soviet Union, the guiding principle behind America’s nuclear policy was “mutually assured destruction,” or “annihilation” if you dig the alliteration. Each superpower understood that the use of just one nuclear weapon would be met by the full nuclear arsenal of the other country. Today, however, the rules have changed. Mutual destruction is no longer even close to assured given the possibility that an untraceable subnational terrorist organization may acquire an atomic bomb, if one hasn’t already.\nThe U.S. nuclear arsenal no longer serves the purpose it once did. Unless the U.S. is going to single-handedly fight off invaders from outer space, there’s no reason to stockpile nearly 20,000 nuclear weapons. Besides, it’d only take a couple dozen to plunge the entire planet into everlasting darkness. \nMaybe it’s time to listen to the certifiably insane. The fact that it can’t go any worse than current U.S. foreign policy ought to be solace to you skeptics.