“In the most dramatic turnabout since the 1979 revolution,” they wrote, “Iran has evolved from theocratic state to military dictatorship.”

If this analysis is correct – and right now, it looks like it is – the White House may need to start over from scratch. Iran is the same country it was a week ago, but it no longer has quite the same government.

Some will argue that Mr. Ahmadinejad may be in a conciliatory mood because he needs talks with the United States to underscore his own legitimacy, but that can only be read as a self-serving Washington perspective. Meanwhile, the Iranian people will have suffered the consolidation of power by a ruthless regime and the transformation of a theocracy to an ideological military dictatorship. That Iran neither needs nor wants accommodation with the West.