Obama Foreign Policy: Weakness Is As Weakness Does

I really liked the Flopping Aces title (which appears below) better.  But I had to come up with something different.

Forrest Gump came up with a more fitting line, too.  But that one would have been reduplicative, too.

So I combined the two together.

Obama foreign policy: weakness through weakness
Posted by: DrJohn

On March 26, in what was clearly an act of war, a North Korean torpedo sank a south Korean ship, killing 46 sailors. The Obama administration reacted by expressing a strong amount of “caution.” Two months later, Hillary Clinton finally got around to calling the situation “highly precarious.” The Obama administration supported South Korea’s move to cut trade with North Korea but then made clear it was afraid – afraid of pissing off North Korea:

“We are working hard to avoid an escalation of belligerence and provocation,”

This has become the hallmark of Obama foreign policy. Hillary Clinton has become Neville Chamberlain. I expect to hear that she’s gotten a “Peace with honour” accord with North Korea that will include a bundle of concessions. The US has been frustrated at the hands of the North Koreans before. A quick search for “North Korea reneges” yields 29,700 hits. But it’s not just North Korea. It seems to be the official policy of the Obama administration to have its ass kicked over and over and over.

Obama unilaterally decided to drop a plan for missile defense for Eastern Europe. Obama hoped to get support for sanctions against Iran in return without any commitment from Russia.

Obama’s climb down is likely to be seen by Russia as a victory for its uncompromising stance.

Today, however, analysts pointed out the decision would help Obama secure Moscow’s co-operation on a possible new sanctions package against Iran and would further his desire to “reset” relations with Moscow following a dismal period under the Bush administration.

How did that work out? Not so well:

Brazil, China, Russia: No To Iranian Sanctions

So what does one do when this approach fails? Why, you keep repeating it if you’re Obama.

Iran has been thumbing its nose at the US continuously. During the Presidential campaign Obama asserted that the world must keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons. What does Obama do?

“Weakness Through Weakness.”  That about sums it up.

The fit is soon truly going to hit the shan, and we will have the greatest appeaser since Neville Chamberlain running the show when it happens.

Jimmy Carter is thrilled that he is no longer the biggest disgrace the White House has ever seen, and Neville Chamberlain is sitting up in his grave in expectation that his own title of “World’s Worst Appeasing Weakling” will soon be given to a better useful idiot, as well.

When Iran obtains its nuclear weapons, no one outside of Iran will be more responsible than Barack Obama and the Democrat Party:

From the Los Angeles Times:

Democrats rip Bush’s Iran policy
Presidential candidates say a new intelligence report shows that the administration has been talking too tough.
December 05, 2007|Scott Martelle and Robin Abcarian, Times Staff Writers

DES MOINES — Democratic presidential candidates teamed up during a National Public Radio debate here Tuesday to blast the Bush administration over its policy toward Iran, arguing that a new intelligence assessment proves that the administration has needlessly ratcheted up military rhetoric.

George Bush TRIED to confront Iran over its nuclear weapons program several years ago.  And Democrats said, “NO WAY!  WE ARE WEAKLINGS, WE ARE COWARDS, WE ARE APPEASERS, AND WE WILL DO EVERYTHING WE CAN TO THWART AND UNDERMINE YOU, AND TURN A GROWING DANGER INTO A FUTURE WORLD WAR III.”

What did now-Vice President Joe Biden say?

“It was like watching a rerun of his statements on Iraq five years earlier,” Biden said. “Iran is not a nuclear threat to the United States of America. Iran should be dealt with directly, with the rest of the world at our side. But we’ve made it more difficult now, because who is going to trust us?”

And what did now-President Barack Obama say?

Obama … also drew parallels to the Iraq war buildup.

“What I’ve been consistent about was that this saber-rattling was a repetition of Iraq, a war I opposed, and that we needed to oppose George Bush again,” Obama said. “We can’t keep on giving him the benefit of the doubt, knowing the ways in which they manipulate intelligence.”

To put it in terms of Obama’s own rhetoric, we SHOULD have given Bush the benefit of the doubt.  Because Obama was entirely dead wrong and Bush was completely dead right.

Remember that policy of engagement and consensus-building that has gotten absolutely nowhere while Iran has raced toward a nuclear bomb?

And where has that got us?

Washington Times headline from March 2010:

CIA: Iran capable of producing nukes

Now we know, in light of an ominously developing history, that Democrats were complete idiots and demagogues who were weak and appeasing and utterly unwilling to face a clear and growing danger.

And who was on the right side?

For their part, Republican candidates have said that the new intelligence estimate did not change their view of Iran as a major threat to the United States — a view also held by Bush.

We were fools in 2008.  We elected a fool to the White House.  We put fools in charge of Congress.  And now we are on the verge of paying a terrible price for our foolishness.

Nobody knows what North Korea is going to do.  They are frankly nuts.  They have openly threatened war over anyone trying to call them out for initiating what is clearly a clear act of war.

And Iran?  They are possibly even more nuts.  They’re not just paranoid isolationists with their twitching fingers poised over the nuclear button; they are crazed religious lunatics who believe that starting World War III will force their beloved Twelfth Imam to reveal himself and lead the whole world to conversion to Islam.

At the very, very least, if we’re really lucky, all Iran will do is finance and foment international terrorism and attack us with nuclear-armed impunity.  If we’re kind of lucky, Iran will block the Strait of Hormuz and send gasoline prices soaring to $14/gallon until we prostrate ourselves and provide a suitable package of concessions.  If we’re not too lucky, Iran will launch a conventional attack against Israel along with a host of Muslim allies.  And if we’re quite unlucky, Iran will initiate World War III by launching a full-scale nuclear attack.

And we can thank Barack Hussein Obama that his policy of “weakness through weakness” is bringing us ever closer to the red fangs of an insane global war, just as Neville Chamberlain’s policy did before him during the 1930s.

Iran Invades Iraqi Territory, Seizes Major Oil Well

Boy, those Iranians sure are afraid of our strong and courageous president, aren’t they?

They’re moving full-steam ahead in their quest to develop a nuclear weapon.  They just successfully test fired a medium range ballistic missile that could carry nukes to Israel, Europe, and a number of vital US bases, in an in-your-face gesture.  And just in case Obama failed to see Iran’s defiance, they just seized an oil well from a country where Obama still has 100,000 troops.

DECEMBER 18, 2009, 12:16 P.M. ET

Iraqi Oil Officials Accuse Iranians of Holding Iraqi Oil Field

By HASSAN HAFIDH and CHIP CUMMINS

Iraqi officials said Iranian troops occupied a disputed oil well along the two countries’ border, the latest in a string of sometimes-contradictory statements Friday about the incursion, fueling worry about an escalation in tensions between Baghdad and Tehran.

Iranian and Iraqi oil officials have frequently tussled over territory along their shared border, and in particular they have traded accusation about oil resources at the shared field at the center of Friday’s reports.

Still, some reports indicated gun fire had been exchanged and Iranians were still holding one well, representing a significant escalation if those reports were confirmed. The reported incursion also comes as Iraqi politicians, many of whom are campaigning on platforms critical of Iranian influence, prepare for parliamentary elections slated for March. That timing could enflame political rhetoric over even a relatively minor incident.

International oil prices spiked briefly on the reports, but appeared to settle back down in midday trading in New York.

Attempts to reach the Iranian mission in New York for comment weren’t immediately successful.

Iraqi Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammed Haj Aziz told the Associated Press late Friday that Iranian troops seized the area around an oil well in the Al-Fakkah field. He said he didn’t know if the Iranians were still in control of the territory. Earlier in the day, Iraqi officials had denied any incursion had taken place.

Mr. Aziz said late Friday the Foreign Ministry and the Oil Ministry were coordinating over what steps to take and were considering summoning the Iranian ambassador to discuss the issue on Saturday. Iraq’s state-run Iraqiya television reported the National Security Council, headed by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, was meeting Friday night to discuss the issue, according to the AP.

Senior oil ministry officials weren’t immediately available to comment late Friday, the start of the weekend in Iraq.

Deputy Interior Minister Ahmed Ali al-Khafaji, reversing statements made earlier in the day, told Reuters that Iranian soldiers had crossed into Iraqi territory and had taken up position at the field. The minister said the incursion on Friday was the latest in a series this week, further muddying the waters.

A local oil official in the area where the field is located said Iranians were still in control of Well No. 4 at the field. The official said a group of less than a dozen Iranian soldiers occupied the well, but did so two weeks ago. They opened fire briefly, raised the Iranian flag and continue to occupy the area, the official said.

[Continue reading]

It strikes me as very interesting that this development almost immediately followed an admission by Hillary Clinton that Obama’s foreign policy (which she personally opposed and even mocked as a candidate for president) has been an unmitigated disaster:

US outreach to Iran has ‘produced very little,’ Clinton says
Posted : Mon, 14 Dec 2009 18:16:00 GMT

Washington – US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday that more international pressure will be needed to rein in Iran’s nuclear programme, acknowledging that US efforts to reach out to Tehran have not worked. “I don’t think anyone can doubt that our outreach has produced very little in terms of any kind of positive response from the Iranians,” Clinton said.

Since President Barack Obama took office, the United States has sought more dialogue with Iran, hoping to resolve the nuclear stalemate. The administration has wanted to see progress by the end to the year or pursue additional UN Security Council sanctions to persuade Iran to comply with demands to clarify its nuclear activities.

“Certainly additional pressure is going to be called for in order to do that,” Clinton said during a press conference with Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Moratinos.

Clinton’s comments came following a report in the Times of London saying documents it obtained show Iran is seeking to develop a device that his used in a nuclear bomb to trigger an explosion.

But no true liberal would ever have been able to imagine that a presentation of utter weakness would not have worked.

Soon this already failed president will have to contend with a belligerent nuclear-armed terrorist state.  He (and we as a result of our idiotic vote for him) will have to contend with the fact that the Iranians have no fear of or respect for Obama at all.

Then we will truly begin to experience the “blessings” of the Chinese curse that we live in ‘interesting’ times under the Obama era of hype and chains.