Monday, September 14, 2009

Obama's Iran Folly



While the national attention is diverted over his domestic policies, President Obama has embarked on a course regarding Iran that will go down in history as a classic example of folly.It's so dangerous as to almost defy belief.

It was Barack Obama who first introduced the policy of engagment with Iran to the point where Ayatollah Khamaenei justifiably mocked him by saying the US had no strategy 'except pleading to negotiate.'

Needless to say, the 'unclenched fist' offered by Obama failed miserably, with Iran's leaders simply repeating that any discussion of its nuclear weapons program was over while making good use of the time Obama provided them.

In fact, as I wrote in American Thinker during the Iranian 'elections', Obama's weak stance on Iran likely convinced Khamenei and the Council of Guardians that the facade of a replacement for Ahmadinejad wasn't necessary,and that the regime had a free hand to crush any domestic opposition.The result is that we're now facing the most radical Iranian regime since Khomeini's.

Seeing that the Iranians weren't responding with an unclenched fist, the next step for Obama was a grand plan for new, more punitive sanctions by the end of September. Missing from the plan was how Obama planned to convince Russia and China to go along or any notion of how these sanctions were going to work better than say, the UN's Oil For Food sanctions against Saddam but that's what Obama announced.

Shortly before the scheduled meeting, two things happened. Putin announced unequivocally that Russia would not support any sanctions and the Iranian regime sent Obama an insulting letter a few days ago that after all these months, it would finally talk to the Great Satan – but not about Iran's nuclear program, which Iran's Ahmadinejad said was a closed issue and not subject to debate.

No, the Mullahs want to talk about ending nuclear proliferation ( read: getting rid of Israel's nuclear deterrent) and ending the Security Council vetoes in the UN.

And believe it or not, Obama accepted!

Since the talks have no preconditions, Iran doesn't have to do anything while the talks continue, especially not curtail its nuclear program.

There's no time limit to the talks,so there won't be any attempts at sanctions or any other method to rein in Iran's nuclear programs and aggressive behavior.That means the mullahs can spin things out for as long as they want to while the centrifuges keep running and China completes its billion dollar project to repair Iran's major strategic liability,the need to import refined petroleum products.

It's a total victory for the Mullahs.

The only bright spot in all this is the Israelis, if we're fortunate.

Obama may wrongly believe the US and the West can living with nuclear blackmail at the hands of a country like Iran, but the Israelis already know they can't. Khamenei and Ahmadinejad have made that quite clear on a number of occasions. They will be forced to take the action Obama lacks the manhood for while they still can, simply for their own survival.

It may even take place during Obama's farcical 'talks'.

I would not be at all surprised to find out that Obama is counting on this. Rest assured that if Israel is successful and Obama has anything to say about it, Israel's reward for saving the West from itself will be demonization in the UN with American support, heavy sanctions and status as a pariah nation. .

Our old ally Honduras is receiving only slightly less ill treatment at Obama's hands for merely following its Constitution and expelling a would be Leftist dictator. One can only imagine what kind of punishment the UN with American backing would attempt to mete out to Israel.



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