Displaying a four-year-old’s understanding of cause and effect, the New York Times editorial board today complains that it got what it asked for.

The solons at the NYT moan that despite the United States’ exclusively diplomatic carrot-or-an -even-bigger-carrot approach to Iran’s mullahocracy, Iran refuses to play nice, detaining regime critics and seeking leverage by abducting Americans.

The editorial board sternly notes that “the spectacle of three Americans subjected to a show trial will make it even less likely that the world will give Iran the respect it insists it deserves — or even a serious hearing.”

Uh, smart unnamed liberal editorial board dudes and/or dudettes? America, relying on your warped world view, has trained Iran to behave in exactly the manner of which you now. And, by the way, Iran doesn’t care what you think.

Let’s clue in the NYT, shall we?

(1) Diplomacy has never worked on post-shah Iran. Only President Reagan’s credible threat of overwhelming force led to the release of the U.S. hostages in 1981, timed almost to the minute with President Reagan’s swearing in. Yet despite all evidence to the contrary, the NYT has continuously stumped for diplomacy and limp-wristed sanctions in lieu of action against rogue regimes.

Most of the cited NYT editorials read like a bad sixth-grade civics assignment. “I know Mao killed about 40 million of his own people, but maybe if people tried harder to be nice to him, he’d have been nicer back. It’s like last week, when Brandi was totally mocking me for wearing last year’s Abercrombie hoodie, which majorly sucked for me. But then I heard Brandi thinks Oreos are awesome, so I totally shared my Oreos with her at lunch, and now we’re, like, BFFs. If only America had shared its Oreos with Mao, 40 million Chinese people would still be alive!” Whoops, that’s the lede from Maureen Dowd’s next insightful column. Sorry, MoDo.

(2) Partly due to the NYT’s fawning, uncritical coverage of Barack Obama during the 2008 election season (mostly due to Bush/Republican fatigue), the American public elected President Obama, a fellow traveler fully on board with the NYT’s blame America first foreign policy. Iran watched with interest.

(3) North Korea abducted two “reporters” working for former V.P. Al Gore’s vanity cable channel. President Obama dutifully pulled out all the diplomatic stops dispatching President Bill Clinton to Pyongyang to grovel for the hostages’ release, garnering the NorKs international rogue regime street cred. Again, Iran watched, and learned.

(4) Iran abducts three American hikers (who shouldn’t have been anywhere near Iran in the first instance).

Iran has learned from America’s behavior, connecting the dots in a way the pointy-headed NYT editorial board never will. Iran has no downside in taking Americans hostage under the Obama administration’s current foreign policy doctrine. Worst case, Iran keeps the hostages knowing only talk and ineffective sanctions will be its punishment, playing a waiting game in which Washington surely will blink first. Best case, Washington dispatches a well-known liberal icon to plead with the mullahs, creating a great photo-op, and maybe some undisclosed concessions.

Again, the NYT helped create the situation it now complains of.

Dumbasses.

'Puter

Always right, unless he isn’t, the infallible Ghettoputer F. X. Gormogons claims to be an in-law of the Volgi, although no one really believes this.

’Puter carefully follows economic and financial trends, legal affairs, and serves as the Gormogons’ financial and legal advisor. He successfully defended us against a lawsuit from a liquor distributor worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid deliveries of bootleg shandies.

The Geep has an IQ so high it is untestable and attempts to measure it have resulted in dangerously unstable results as well as injuries to researchers. Coincidentally, he publishes intelligence tests as a side gig.

His sarcasm is so highly developed it borders on the psychic, and he is often able to insult a person even before meeting them. ’Puter enjoys hunting small game with 000 slugs and punt guns, correcting homilies in real time at Mass, and undermining unions. ’Puter likes to wear a hockey mask and carry an axe into public campgrounds, where he bursts into people’s tents and screams. As you might expect, he has been shot several times but remains completely undeterred.

He assures us that his obsessive fawning over news stories involving women teachers sleeping with young students is not Freudian in any way, although he admits something similar once happened to him. Uniquely, ’Puter is unable to speak, read, or write Russian, but he is able to sing it fluently.

Geep joined the order in the mid-1980s. He arrived at the Castle door with dozens of steamer trunks and an inarticulate hissing creature of astonishingly low intelligence he calls “Sleestak.” Ghettoputer appears to make his wishes known to Sleestak, although no one is sure whether this is the result of complex sign language, expert body posture reading, or simply beating Sleestak with a rubber mallet.

‘Puter suggests the Czar suck it.