We cannot listen to Iran’s Ahmadinejad posturing on the expansion of the Iranian atomic energy program, without recalling Obama’s dramatic reversal on the U.S. land based missile defense system in Europe only days ago. The blunder was not in the reversal, but in its timing and its process.
The degree to which Iran has advanced its uranium enrichment capabilities will remain an unknown factor, and the international community reaction will continue to be perplexed, and marooned in paralysis of fear. Iran will not let anyone into whatever enrichment facility exists. No one will see what the ayatollahs do not wish to make public, sending us into recollections of the disastrous outcome following a long hide-and-seek dance with Saddam Hussein seven years ago. This leaves the world, Israel and the U.S. in particular, with a conundrum of literally seismic proportions. Iran’s nuclear progress is not new, nor is it news. What is new is the loss of one very powerful strategic negotiating tool that could have been useful in addressing Iran’s dangerous belligerence – the land-based European missile defense system.
When Obama backed off the deployment of a missile defense system in Europe, he did so without gaining a single concession from Putin and Russia. Russia had long blustered and railed against the U.S. missile deployment plan. Putin claimed the missiles were intended to threaten Russian sovereignty in the region, and that they were not meant to defend against Iran. The hovering menace from the U.S. was a significant affront to Putin’s self-image. Obama’s abrogation of such significant “stance” on behalf of the United States suggests that this Administration learned nothing from the Ronald Reagan approach to international negotiations. Reagan changed the world when he boasted of his Strategic Defense Initiative satellite based defense system. The long list of concessions extracted from Gorbachev by Reagan, as well as his brilliance throughout the process of negotiations, should be compulsory reading for any student of Presidential impact on history.
Disclosure that Obama has known about Iran’s second uranium-enrichment facility all along, and that he has supposedly sprung an international trap for Iran, as some media such as the Washington Post are now suggesting, is peculiar analysis, as well as it is pandering in the extreme. Obama gave up a major negotiating card that could have been used to push Russia toward joining the strengthening of sanctions against Iran. China cannot be counted on to assist any future confrontation with Iran, having taken itself out of the equation with investments in Iran to feed its own requirements for energy and natural resources. The only other power, whose advocacy is truly needed in the region for serious containment of the ayatollahs in Tehran, is Russia. China and Russia provide Iran with enough trade to successfully finance the Ayatollahs through many more elections no matter what sanctions Obama might think of adding to the existing limitations. Iran’s path to becoming a nuclear power appears unobstructed.
The alternative to the controversial land based system being mothballed, according to Obama, is cheaper, quicker and more effective. This means the decision to embrace the new technology is very likely a good one. If you had this information in hand, would you have run headlong into an announcement, given that the planned European shield had been a major thorn under Putin’s belly? The diplomatic clout that the West’s tension with Iran has provided Putin still remains, and no concessions have been extracted, nor are we likely to see any extracted in the near future. Russia’s response has been to provide more rhetoric, and more blustering. The Russian envoy to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, said, “… Americans have simply put their own mistake right. And we are not duty-bound to pay for someone to put their own mistakes right.” Putin will continue to view Iran as an economic opportunity that will be exploited without interference from the West. The threat of crisis and instability in the region will also maintain energy prices at levels that Russia requires to finance its annual operating budget.
Adding to the confusion of signals emanating from the White House, Obama suggested that he could resurrect the European missile defense plan if Russia doesn’t help with the threat presented by Iran. This kind of accessory statement further weakens America’s hand. It suggests a lack of resolve on the initial reversal of the strategy, and it also infers apprehension about the new strategy and the underlying technology. Can America rely on the new capabilities and technologies or not? Are the interceptor capacities more flexible and cost-effective? Are the advanced sensor technologies capable of detecting and tracking enemy missiles, or aren’t they? Why would Obama even hint at such uncertainty?
The signals showered on Americans and their allies by this Administration’s decisions and announcements are confusing, but to Russia, they seem to be welcome and they reinforce its strategy of saber rattling. Sanctions have also not deterred Iran’s ayatollahs. Now, with the loss of a major strategic and negotiating option against the Kremlin, the enlistment of the Russian bear’s assistance will undoubtedly be impossible, and will lead to a more belligerent Iran. We can expect an increase in its destabilizing activities in Iraq and Afghanistan, and its financing of terrorism. The violence we witnessed against the Iranian people after the recent elections should be indication enough that a strategy pursuing, “engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect,” as Obama wishes it, is simply just that, … wishful thinking.
A constituent of the vast baby boomer generation with a career which has been fortunate to know the ponderous corporate worlds, as well as the intimately pressurized, and invigorating entrepreneurial domains of high tech and venture capital, I have harvested my share of mistakes meandering through corridors of enterprise from Silicon Valley, to London and endless, colourful, sometimes praetorian points in between. The voyage has provided an abundance of fodder for a pen yielding to an inquisitive keyboard, a foraging mind, and a passionate spirit.
Whether political or business or social or economic or personal, is it not all political? It is a privilege to write, and an even greater privilege to be read by anyone, and sometimes with the wind at my back the writing may occasionally be legible. I do not write to invite scorn, nor to invite respect, but if I get really lucky the writing can stimulate thinking. I also write for the very selfish purpose of animating my own processes, and engaging the best of what life offers. Above all, whether biting fire or swatting shadows, I am grateful to be gifted the freedom to write and publish whatever flows down to the keyboard. To all those who enabled this freedom, and to all those standing guard to preserve it, I am indebted.
Oba-Mao is a reader, not a leader …
To Obama, this is not a blunder, or even anything he does not see coming.
He is counting on the conflagration to happen.
Let’s look at what is happening, what will happen, and how he’s pushing it to happen…
-Israel will made to feel cornered and out of options, seeing that the last hope for her concerns be assuaged (USA) has abandon her.
-Israel will attack Iran within 6 months hence.
-Oil prices go north of $300/barrel. (Persian Gulf closed off/East coast of Arabia attacked)
-Gas prices go north of $5/ gallon. (He has previously stated he wants to see that price.)
-He can then blame ALL economic problems on Israel, especially the ones he’s caused.
After this, he can USE THE CRISIS to further his agenda…
-Cut all ties with Israel. Refuse to help with defending against HezbAllah, Hamas, and Syria when they are used to counter-attack Israel. Western support of Israel is gone.
-Mandatory energy conservation on a massive scale. (Cap and trade re-introduced, carbon trading begins on a massive scale to pay off supporters.)
-Pulling troops out of Quatar, Kuwait, Iraq, Afghan, et al (for their own safety!)
-Stock market crash. (More control/restrictions of Wall Street)
-Dollar crash, reducing our debt with China through instant inflation or even reneging on the debt due to deflation, as long as capitalism and/or past-presidents and others can be blamed, and China screwed, his narcissism and plan will remain whole.
-More people out of work and on the public dole. (Gov healthcare re-intro’ed, along with every other favorite socialist program.)
-“Change” completed.-
Obama and Co are not stupid, nor naive. There is a purpose, but that purpose is so horrible, we observers find it hard to accept. The key is to first kill off the hopes of freedom. We’ve seen the abandonment of the other Holders-of-Light, now it’s time to extinguish the second-brightest, then lastly turn off our own Beacon on the Hill.
“Obama gave up a major negotiating card that could have been used to push Russia toward joining the strengthening of sanctions against Iran. ”
Respectfully, how do you know that he got nothing in return?
I’m not willing to give Obama the benefit of the doubt on this, but if there has been a deal that will result in strong, broad sanctions that take effect very soon, that could be what we need.
The ideal here is to change the government of Iran. The simplest way to do that would be that the people rise up. Maybe they will if food and gas shoot up in price. Once there is a new government, we can get them to turn over all the information and weapons-related material.
I don’t know if that is what Obama wants, but maybe that will happen.
We know we got nothing in return, because the leadership of Russia said we got nothing in return, along with Russia not returning anything. The two kinda go together.
It was Obama/Clinton telling Russia about the undisclosed enrichment site in Iran that we used as an onus to get them to help us out in the UN, but all that happened was the Russians in-turn told the Iranians that America/West knew…and THAT’S why Iamadinnerjacket made the end-around and disclosed it publicly last week at the UN, thus making Obama look stupid.
Russia WANTS and needs America weakened in order to run roughshod over Europe. They want and need Israel to attack Iran, so that fuel prices go up, thus giving the now largest exporter of oil-products in the world more money and influence. Russia NEEDS the worlds capital-economy to fail in order to take Asia/China down.
Guess who’s left standing with no bruses, and not a shot fired?
While we all say we hope Iran’s people will revolt, the guy they want is they guy who started the nuke-program, and was a close associate of Khommeni, so it follows that none of their present foreign-policy direction will change. There is no one in Iran threatening the Mullah’s power-structure or the Khommenist hard-line stand. They will NOT suddenly become Lichtenstein.
@ Some Patriot,
1. As I noted in the article, quoting a senior official, but there are plenty of others quotations available, Russia’s response was overt amusement, even laughter, and general head shaking, at the Obama announcement. Strangely, the American MSM didn’t perceive any of it as a BLUNDER.
2. Your sentiment, while wishful, should not be the Commander In Chief’s principal modus operendi, as appears to be the case.
Patvann:
“Obama and Co are not stupid, nor naive.”
Well that’s one way of considering the dunce’s slo mo train wreck presidency- that of the “eeeevil geniuses behind the telegenic jabbering imbecile who are so smart they’re ten moves ahead, only we’re too dumb to see it.”
The other school of thought is that spendypants is a callow stuttering boob, with nothing but a career in vomiting stupid out his vacuous yet capacious piehole. He has no clue what to do, because basically he is the peter principle to the power of ‘leventy billion (a number half of what his deficits will be if he succeeds in screwing up our country like he wants).
You chose the former. I chose the latter- occam’s razor and all that.
No offense, but I reeeeeeeeeally hope I’m right on this one.
Iran is deeply thankful for the removal of its arch enemy Saddam and installing a pro Iranian government in Baghdad. Perhaps Obama should remind them of that ?
@ OIAJD
I don’t think we’re too dumb to see it, because so many of us DO see it! (I give you the TEAParty’s and his sinking approval numbers) It’s just that all too many of our countrymen have either placed blinders on themselves, or actually think they WANT this to all happen. (Hear us Obama!)
As far as his stupidness goes, notice the time and place of Teh Stoopid…It’s always when he’s trying to sound/be moderate or worthy of the particular office he’s aiming at, and goes off script. It’s not that he doesn’t know what to say to placate us Conservatives, he simply wasn’t recently “boned-up” on those issues prior to a particular speech. And if Mr. Prompter is there, why bother memorizing anything? I chalk it up to: “Too lazy to memorize the speech.”
When you hear him talk with his acolytes at Accorn, or the rich liberal snobs in SanFran, he no longer needs the ‘prompter, (but still has it) and sounds smooth-as-silk, with no babbling, of stuttering. It’s because he’s in his element with people who have the same goals as him. He spoke from the heart, in the same way (but a 180 opposite POV) Sarah did during her acceptance speech, when HER teleprompter went haywire, and yet she still came off great.
It’s hard to be smooth, when one doesn’t believe what one is saying, teleprompter or not.
We could, of course challenge him on world and American historical knowledge, and compare him to you, for example, and he would end up looking as retarded as a few of our regular gadfly posters lurking around here, but that isn’t the kind of “smarts” I am implying.
But in the realm of Progressive (Stalinist) electoral tactics, the use of language and rhetoric, and the manipulation of voting masses, he’s head and shoulders above the average man, including most lefty political-science professors. He understands economics just as well as Milton Friedman, because he MUST understand it, in order to destroy it in the manner he is doing.
We might hope/assume he’s a puppet on a string, but those people are around him only to help move their (and his) cause through the protocols of our government system, and to shape the overall message with the dumb-masses. He has been a champion of capital-destruction long before he ever met any of them, and was even aware enough of his radical-thought enough to ensure he left no discernible paper-trails haunted him while in Illinois, or the Senate. (Present!)
I hope to god you’re right, and I’m wrong, because if we are up against mere stupidity, it becomes an easier battle.
Just in case there is any doubt, Ahmadinejad has gone home and told his Iranian audience that the West would soon regret the stance it has taken towards its uranium enrichment plant.
Why is there so much pablum eating here by the MSM? The ayatolahs are hiding more than it appears we know. Regardless, they are determined to have their nuclear weapons.
Those Ruskies don’t waste any time.
http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/wealthofnations/archive/2009/09/28/the-coming-russia-georgia-clash-over-abkhazia.aspx
Just curious, did the whiz kid in the White House give Georgia and the break-aways to Russia so the Russians would allow him to dump missile defense? Is that what he got out of the deal?
@ Missy,
… Now that’s funny. Thanks for the morning humor.