Last week, the State Department convinced Congress to label the Iranian Republican Guard a terrorist organization, in the best hostile and empty act of Congress since “freedom fries.”

Unfortunately, the Iranians beat us to the punch and officially labeled the U.S. Army and the CIA terrorist organizations three days before the Senate could pass the motion. Enraged, Elizabeth Dole pulled Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s beard and challenged him to a fight at recess, if he wasn’t a chicken.

Twenty-two Democrats voted against the motion on the grounds that if someone actually took these sixth-grade politics seriously, it could be interpreted as the authorization of military force against Iran.

“Last week, we said Bush could have our pudding,” said House Majority Leader Harry Reid. “Now he takes it every day at lunch. This is the last time we trust that meanie-head!”

If Ahmadinejad doesn’t accept Mrs. Dole’s challenge and settle this spat by single combat and we do end up actually fighting a war against Iran, the results of this resolution could be disastrous. With both armies considering each other terrorist organizations, most of the international war crime legislations we’ve spent the past five years circumventing – Geneva conventions and the like – apply to neither side.

“I mean, where do we put them that’s worse than Gitmo?” Bush said. “Seriously, I don’t think the CIA has that type of black-prison capacity.”

Even worse, this shows a major weakness in the State Department’s ability to talk trash. Ahmadinejad came down to Columbia University to talk jive for hours while the State Department just stood there, not knowing what to say.

This “jive gap” could further destabilize the region, as other nations see us as punks while Ahmadinejad’s weapons of mass communication go unchallenged. This is not how politics should work.

Saturday mornings as a kid spent watching television reruns of “The Hunt for Red October” and “Lethal Weapon 2” left me with the impression that diplomats are smooth, Machiavellian, intelligent people capable of playing real-politik at the highest level.

A diplomat should be the sort of person qualified to negotiate the best interests of the most powerful nation on earth by day, then go to an embassy function and seduce the undersecretary of the defense minister of Paraguay by night. The sort of person who is qualified, stands over Ethan Hunt’s body in a bloody tuxedo telling Prague Police “Diplomatic immunity,” then walks to the embassy with the microfilm like he’s done it a million times before.

Apparently the State Department doesn’t actually have anyone like that on staff, so I recommend a new division within the department: the Rapper Corps. Calling on the very best our entertainment industry has to offer, we can send Eminem and Kanye West on a fact finding mission to Iran and finally drop some knowledge on the Iranian Army. Raining down insults like sweet cluster bombs of freedom, not only would they out talk Ahmadinejad, they’d out dress his tie-less casual appeal.

Given the current state of U.S. diplomacy, 50 Cent could hardly do a worse job.