How’s Obama Doing In Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq? Not So Good

Let’s take them in alphabetical order.  First, How’s Obama doing in Afghanistan?

Not so good.  Our foreign policy is so deteriorated there that Obama is refusing to even acknowledge whether or not the leader of the country we are fighting in is an ally:

White House won’t say if Karzai is still an ally
By Jordan Fabian & Sam Youngman – 04/06/10 02:00 PM ET

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs would not say Tuesday if the Obama administration considers Afghan President Hamid Karzai an ally.

Gibbs criticized the Afghan president after Karzai took a shot at Western leaders and the United Nations for election fraud in his country during last year’s presidential contest.

Administration officials said Tuesday that they will continue to “evaluate” remarks made by  Karzai, and that the evaluation could result in Karzai’s May invitation to the White House being revoked.

President Barack Obama extended an invitation for Karzai to visit the White House on May 12, but that could be in jeopardy if Karzai continues to make “troubling and untruthful” comments.

Asked at the daily press briefing if the U.S. considers Karzai an ally, Gibbs said “Karzai is the democratically elected leader of Afghanistan.”

Pressed on the issue, Gibbs said that “the remarks he’s made I can’t imagine that anyone in this country found them anything other than troubling…when the Afghan leaders take steps to improve governance and root out corruption, then the president will say kind words.”

Gibbs added that the administration will continue to use “stern language” with Karzai if it doesn’t take steps to root out corruption and questioned the rationale behind Karzai’s controversial statements.

“Whether there’s some domestic political benefit that he’s trying to gain, I can’t say,” Gibbs said.

So Karzai defends his country’s elections, and his own political credibility, from foreign attacks and demagoguery, and as a result Obama snubs him in what seems like a rather petty emotional response.

Maybe Karzai should start meddling in Obama’s election-status by pointing out that Obama’s own wife strongly suggested Obama was not born in the United States when she remarked that she and Obama visited “his home country in Kenya.”  Which of course is what the birthers who say Obama was not an American-born U.S. citizen have been saying all along.  Even the Associated Press at one point described Obama as “Kenyan-born” before it became inconvenient to so-describe him.

Given that Obama is becoming unglued over Karzai defending himself over attacks regarding the legitimacy of his election, it would be interesting if we could see how Obama would handle attacks over the legitimacy of his election.

In any event, things aren’t going so well when we have hundreds of thousands of troops fighting in a country while our president openly doubts whether the leader of said country is an ally.

That was the first thing that went truly, truly wrong in Vietnam, you know.

How’s Obama doing in Iran?  Really, really bad.  It has become abundantly obvious that Iran WILL have nuclear weapons under Obama’s watch.

How does this Washington Times headline grab you?

CIA: Iran capable of producing nukes

And what is Obama’s reaction to this intolerable and incredibly dangerous development?  Try acceptance.

I know, I know.  Iran was supposed to reflect upon the sheer, transcendent wonderfulness of Obama, and agree that Obama’s empty words really were more important than reality, and abandon it’s nuclear weapons program.  But somehow something went wrong in Obama’s calculation that Iran and the ayatollahs would decide to embrace Obama’s narcissism.

Who would have ever thunk it?

Oh, wait.  I would have.  I wrote an article in August, 2008 patiently explaining why a vote for Obama was tantamount to a vote for a nuclear-armed Iran.

In another August 2008 article predicting that “President Obama” equaled “nuclear Iran,” I wrote:

This is the question that will effect – and possibly haunt – American foreign policy for generations to come.

If we elect Barack Obama, we are tacitly choosing to allow Iran to develop the bomb. Any of his tough-sounding rhetoric aside, you need to realize that Barack Obama has already repeatedly philosophically condemned the very same sort of preemptive attack that would be necessary to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

Heck, I can go back to April 2008, when I was already explaining why electing either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton over John McCain guaranteed a nuclear-armed Iran.

When Iran obtains nuclear weapons, the world will dramatically change.  We will not be able to control this rogue terrorist nation – a nation with a radically apocalyptic view of the world – which has repeatedly threatened to “wipe Israel off the map.”  When Iran develops the bomb, they will be able to block the Strait of Hormuz and shut off the oil supply, skyrocketing gasoline prices to over $14 a gallon.  When Iran gets nukes, it will be able to launch a global terrorist jihad without fear of being attacked.  When Iran has the bomb, it will result in a nuclear-arms race in the craziest region in the history of the world.

Ultimate Armageddon will be guaranteed when Iran gets the bomb.  And it will get the bomb because of Barack Hussein Obama.

How about Iraq?  Well, things are hardly looking up there under Obama, either.

A few weeks ago, Joe Biden was ridiculously asserting that Iraq “could be one of the great achievements of this administration.”  What was asinine about that statement was that it utterly ignored the Bush administration, that deserves all the credit, and instead assign credit to two men who foolishly tried to undercut everything that Bush did which led to the success we attained in Iraq.

But things were clearly going well in Iraq, such that Joe Biden tried to steal credit for it.

Not so much now.

From the New York Times:

Baghdad Bombing Streak Stokes Fear of New Round of Sectarian Violence
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS and YASMINE MOUSA
Published: April 6, 2010

BAGHDAD — Deadly blasts shook Baghdad for the second time in three days on Tuesday, deepening fears of a new outbreak of insurgent and sectarian violence.

At least seven bombings of residential areas of the Iraqi capital, both Shiite and Sunni, killed 35 people and wounded more than 140. The violence came against a backdrop of continuing political instability after March 7 parliamentary elections left no single group able to form a government, forcing a scramble to form coalitions.

A similar political void after the 2005 parliamentary vote preceded Iraq’s bloody sectarian warfare of 2006 and 2007, from which the country has only begun to emerge.

There are also new concerns that Iraq’s army and police may drift back into sectarianism.

It’s logically impossible for the Obama administration to one day say Iraq will be one of their “greatest achievements,” and the next day blame Bush for the failure of Iraq.  That said, I guarantee you that that is precisely what Obama will try to do if Iraq turns sour on him.

Ayad Allawi, the likely next prime minister of Iraq, had this to say only yesterday:

ALLAWI: The process of democracy where you would have a stable Iraq is being hijacked.  And because it’s being hijacked, it’s going to throw this country into violence. And once this country is thrown again into violence as before, then this will spill over to the region and vice versa. Problems around the region will be transferred here also.

I bold and red-font the statements that it is “being” hijacked.  It is something that is beginning to happen just now.  And Iraq is being “thrown again into violence as before.”  Obama can’t blame Bush for this increasing violence.  He can only blame himself (not that he ever actually WILL blame himself).

We are beginning to escalate our withdrawal out of Iraq, and lo and behold, the Islamic jihadists are determined to make it appear as though we are withdrawing with our tails between our legs.  They are also making it rather obvious that when we leave, they will be present to fill the newly created vacuum with their poisonous presence.

Allawi is pleading with the United States to discontinue the timetable for withdrawal and remain through this difficult period.  But the report by correspondent Dominic Di-Natale concludes by saying, “Ayad Allawi’s call for a troop withdrawal suspension will fall on deaf ears for the time being even if it is a serious plea for help. ”

One of the fears is that Obama is tunnel-vision focused on getting the hell out of Iraq, and is ignoring the delicate state-of-affairs there.

So how’s Obama doing in Afghanistan, in Iran, and in Iraq?  Pretty darn horrendously.

An article that encapsulates the Obama disaster of a foreign policy is “The Karzai Fiasco” by the Wall Street Journal.

Obama Forced To Reveal Mutually Contradictory Positions

A July 20 Associated Press story asked the question which answer is obvious: “Is media playing fair in campaign coverage?” The article begins:

NEW YORK – Television news’ royalty will fly in to meet Barack Obama during this week’s overseas trip: CBS chief anchor Katie Couric in Jordan on Tuesday, ABC’s Charles Gibson in Israel on Wednesday and NBC’s Brian Williams in Germany on Thursday.

The anchor blessing defines the trip as a Major Event and — much like a “Saturday Night Live” skit in February that depicted a press corps fawning over Obama — raises anew the issue of fairness in campaign coverage.

The news media have devoted significantly more attention to the Democrat since Hillary Rodham Clinton suspended her campaign and left a two-person contest for the presidency between Obama and Republican John McCain, according to research conducted by the Project for Excellence in Journalism.

The reality is, “Is media playing fair in campaign coverage?” is a rhetorical question (a question with such a patently obvious answer there is no point in answering) to any but the most deluded.

But what we are seeing is that there is some evidence that the media – and particularly the three elite network anchors who had been described as “Obama’s three press secretaries” – don’t like being so obviously “in the tank” for Obama. They want to show their viewers that they really aren’t as biased as everyone thinks they are. And that means finally asking Obama a few tough questions instead of merely basking in his magnificence the way they usually do.

Katie Couric – SURPRISE! – attempted to pin Obama down on some of his inherent contradictions regarding Iraq.

Obama stuck to the same position he gave at a press conference. Allow me to emphasize certain statements in boldface:

Sens. Barack Obama, Chuck Hagel, and Jack Reed just released a statement about their day in Iraq. The three are overnighting in Baghdad and will arrive in Amman tomorrow for their first and only press conference of their trip to Afghanistan and Iraq.

The statement notes the security progress in Iraq but gives the new military tactics a fraction of the credit for the reduction in violence. Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, Hagel, a Nebraska Republican, and Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat, all opposed the troop surge.

Obama in an interview with ABC News that’s posted at the bottom of this story in which he says if he had it to do all over again he would still oppose the troop surge. He told ABC what he did not expect or anticipate in Iraq was the Sunni uprising against Al Qaeda and among the Shi’ites decision to play ball politically via cease fires rather than continue their campaign of violence. How the surge affected the calculations in either case is left unsaid by Obama, according to ABC.

The surge is and has been the central story in Iraq since it began in January 2007. Obama, who told CBS on Sunday, that he “never” has doubts about his foreign policy, is in no way re-evaluating the surge or what he did or did not anticipate would arise from it. This may give fodder to John McCain’s camp and other skeptics of Obama’s approach to military tactics, strategic thinking and the ability to adapt his own views to unexpected events.

So our military gets only “a fraction of the credit for the reduction in violence“? And so who gets the real credit for Obama? The Sunni sheiks and the Iraqi government for disarming Shiite militias such as Sadrs!

Does that jive with history? Is it just a coincidence that things were going poorly that Democrats were claiming defeat left and right, and then we had the surge, and then things started going well even as Democrats claimed they weren’t? And our soldiers were just window dressing while Iraq fixed all of its own problems?

I hope you’re not actually as stupid as Barack Obama thinks you are.

President Bush announced the surge strategy on January 7, 2007. 20,000 additional U.S. troops were committed, with the majority – 5 brigades – heading into Baghdad. Within slightly over a month, there were enough American troops to substantially back an Iraqi-led effort to secure the city of Baghdad.

Do you remember Demacrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid saying, “The war is lost“? in April of 2007?

Who doesn’t realize that it was General David Petraeus and the surge that John McCain had been advocating all along that turned things around?

Who doesn’t realize that if we hadn’t listened to great men like Petraeus – and ignored trivial fools like Obama – we would have cut and run in abject disgrace from an emboldened terrorist enemy?

According to the New York Times:

When the Anbar tribes first began cooperating, they told the Americans where the extremists were hiding weapons caches, burying bombs, and running safe houses. Then they set up checkpoints and began engaging in gunfights with Qaeda cells in the Ramadi area.

With attacks decreasing against both Americans and Iraqis in Anbar, and large numbers of tribesmen lining up to join local security forces, the American military has begun to try to replicate its success.

A story by the Times clearly shows the bulk of the Sunni fighters signing on to fight the terrorists and insurgents beginning sometime in May 2007, directly coinciding with the surge. 4,000 Marines deployed to Anbar province.

It is simply a lie to claim that the Sunnis began fighting on their own, or that the surge did not massively influence their willingness to fight. To the extent that the Anbar resistance preceded the surge, it was small, it relied greatly upon American soldiers, and it didn’t explode until after the surge.

The same applies with the Shiite efforts. The effort to disarm Shiite militias such as Moktada al Sadrs Mahdi army. A New York Times story appearing on October 11, 2007 begins (again, boldface mine):

BAGHDAD, Oct. 11 — In a number of Shiite neighborhoods across Baghdad, residents are beginning to turn away from the Mahdi Army, the Shiite militia they once saw as their only protector against Sunni militants. Now they resent it as a band of street thugs without ideology.

It wasn’t until the surge took effect – and Shiites began to recognize that they were protecting them – that the Shiite people began to renounce the militias and the Shiite-backed Iraq government had the backing to demand the disarmament of the troublesome militias.

Barack Obama is thus revealed as a demonstrated liar without shame who gives our heroic soldiers – who have been absolutely magnificent – a “fraction of the credit.” I GIVE THEM ALL THE CREDIT!!!

Our soldiers succeeded when cowardly and craven men like Harry Reid and Barack Obama predicted that they would fail, and very likely even rooted for them to fail (You might recall House Majority Whip James Clyburn acknowledging that good news from Iraq was bad news for Democrats; or you might recall Rep. Jack Murtha presuming that Marines were guilty of war crimes and convicting them before the trial which exonerated them).

The soldiers succeeded. It was Obama and his fellow Democrats who failed.

Barack Obama gives our soldiers no credit because this man who “never has doubts about his foreign policy” cannot acknowledge he was wrong – no matter how obviously and completely wrong he was.

Liberals claim that Bush was inflexible and would not admit his mistakes? Obama is rigid to about the trillionth power.

Obama’s rigid ability to deny reality emerged again as he went to Israel and Gaza.

He had previosly said:

“Let me be clear,” Senator Obama told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. “Israel’s security is sacrosanct. It is non-negotiable. The Palestinians need a state that is contiguous and cohesive, and that allows them to prosper. But any agreement with the Palestinian people must preserve Israel’s identity as a Jewish state, with secure, recognized, and defensible borders. Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided.”

Then as a result of Palestinian anger he said:

“Well, obviously, it’s going to be up to the parties to negotiate a range of these issues. And Jerusalem will be part of those negotiations,” Obama said when asked whether Palestinians had no future claim to the city.

As a direct result of Obama’s complete abandonment of his earlier position, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said of Obama’s reversal:

“This statement is totally rejected,” Abbas told reporters in Ramallah. “The whole world knows that holy Jerusalem was occupied in 1967 and we will not accept a Palestinian state without having Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state.”

Way to go, Barack. You sure contributed to Mideast peace. Any other issues you want to resolve with your courage, your integrity, your resolve, and your strength of character?

Now, any normal human being would acknowledge that they had changed their position. But not Barack Obama. He is so personally arrogant, so unyielding, so deceitful, and so intellectually dishonest even with himself, that he simply does not have that capacity within him.

“I continue to say that Jerusalem will be the capital of Israel. I have said it before and will say it again…but I’ve also said that it is a final status issue” that must be decided by negotiation, he said in the southern Israeli town of Sderot.

No. You continue to lie. You continue to say things that are the logical contradiction of what you said earlier, and then you continue to deceitfully and disingenuously misrepresent yourself having been consistent all along.

We can also go back to his incredibly foolish campaign promise from last July:

In July of 2007, Barack Obama was asked by a video questioner: “Would you be willing to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea?…..”

“I would,” Obama answered.  “The notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them, which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration, is ridiculous.”

And his website USED to say:

Obama is the only major candidate who supports tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions

Now he says:

A year ago, Obama was asked whether he would meet personally, without preconditions, with leaders of Iran and other hostile nations during the first year of his administration to resolve differences with the United States. Obama said he would.

On Wednesday Obama said, “I think that what I said in response was that I would at my time and choosing be willing to meet with any leader if I thought it would promote the national security interests of the United States of America. And that continues to be my position. That if I think that I can get a deal that is going to advance our cause, then I would consider that opportunity. But what I also said was that there is a difference between meeting without preconditions and meeting without preparation.”

The point is to say, “No. You didn’t say that at all, you lying weasel. Are you such a completely dishonest man that you can so blatantly lie even to yourself? In grammatical terms, those “if…then” constructions are called “conditionals.” The fact is, you have by now applied so many DIFFERENT PRECONDITIONS to your “without preconditions” policy that your original statement is revealed to have been a) foolish beyond belief; and b) a complete lie.

This man is dangerous, and it is nowhere revealed more than in his foreign policy. He is completely incompetent; he is completely untrustworthy; he is completely wrong; and he is completely unable to recognize obvious contradictions.

Returning to the issue of Iraq, let me make a point: Obama claims the surge was wrong because we’ve diverted resources we should have used in Afghanistan to Iraq. And Obama’s alternative to the surge in Iraq was to instead exert diplomatic pressure by setting a timetable for withdrawal. Obama believes that by setting a date for retreating from Iraq in stone the Iraqi government would be pressured into getting their act together.

Now, if Obama really thought that idea that would have worked in Iraq, why then is he now proposing what clearly amounts to the exact same surge strategy for Afghanistan instead of demanding a withdrawal date that would pressure the Afghani government into getting their act together?

Do you see the inherent contradiction?

Obama’s position on the surge has essentially been: “The surge will fail.” Then he said, “It kind of worked, but we still shouldn’t have done it.” And now he says, “The same strategy that I vehemently opposed in Iraq will work in Afghanistan but it was my idea all along.”

I wrote an article titled, “U.S. vs. Nuclear Iran: Russia, China Block Any Resolution – Again,” that establishes the virtually identical similarities between trying to check a possibly weaponized Iraq with the current environment of trying to check a possibly weaponized Iran. By Obama’s philosophy, we can not move to use military power to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons until: 1) We are absolutely certain they have them (a belief based on the known intelligence is not enough); 2) United Nations resolutions justifying war; and 3) a military alliance similar in size to that of the Gulf War in 1991. Since NONE of those three conditions are likely to be met, we cannot possibly attack Iran to prevent their development of nuclear weapons. And then we would be dealing with a nuclear-armed terrorist belligerent state that is immune to attack (unless you want World War III) and free to attack our interests again and again with impunity.

What would a President Obama do? This is a man who can’t even stand up to his own rhetoric, much less terrorist murders.

Barack Obama is a complete disaster waiting to happen. If we are foolish enough to elect him president, rogue tyrants and totalitarian leaders will recognize Barack Obama’s insipid pandering weakness and immediately begin to exploit him, and the world will be shocked to discover just how empty he truly is.